A PROUST SONATA Premieres at FIAF Next Week
By: Julie Musbach Jan. 05, 2018
The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York's premiere French cultural center, and Da Camera of Houston Productions present the New York Premiere of A Proust Sonata, Wednesday through Friday, January 10-12 at 7:30pm in FIAF's Florence Gould Hall.
Marcel Proust's epic literary masterpiece comes to life in this stunning new production created by pianist and director Sarah Rothenberg, recognized internationally for her innovative and illuminating performances. Equal parts concert and theater, A Proust Sonata transforms music, painting, and literature into multimedia performance.
Excerpts from In Search of Lost Time and the memoirs of Proust's confidante and housekeeper, Céleste Albaret, (both in English translation) are interwoven with sound collage, painting, photographs, and the music that inspired Proust to evoke the author's themes of memory, childhood, Parisian salons, as well as his final reclusive years when he withdrew from society to complete his magnum opus.
Sarah Rothenberg is joined by a cast that includes Obie Award-winning actor Henry Stram as The Narrator/Marcel, Nancy Hume as Céleste, tenorNicholas Phan, violinist Boson Mo, and the Daedalus String Quartet in seven musical tableaux. A Proust Sonata is designed by the Tony and Obie Award-winning team of lighting designer Jennifer Tipton, set and costume designer Marina Draghici, projection designer Hannah Wasileski, and sound designer Bart Fasbender.
Proust wrote effusively of music's unique expressive power to "arouse depths." A Proust Sonata features works by composers who appear in the many musical references of In Search of Lost Time, as well as influential figures whom Marcel Proust encountered in Belle Époque Paris, including Fauré,Schumann, Debussy, Chopin, Ravel, Beethoven, Léon Delafosse, and Proust's lover, Reynaldo Hahn.
"The whole evening radiated uncommon care and intelligence."
-The New York Times on Sarah Rothenberg's Marcel Proust's Paris
Cast
Henry Stram as The Narrator/Marcel
Nancy Hume as Céleste
Tenor: Nicholas Phan
Violin: Boson Mo
String Quartet: Daedalus String Quartet
Piano: Sarah Rothenberg
Creative Team
Lighting Designer: Jennifer Tipton
Set & Costume Designer: Marina Draghici
Projection Designer: Hannah Wasileski
Sound Designer: Bart Fasbender
Scenario and Text Adaption: Sarah Rothenberg
Music
Frederic Chopin
Berceuse, Op. 57
Des pas sur la neige from Preludes, Book I; Harmonies du soir from 5 Songs of Charles Baudelaire
Léon Delafosse
Mensonges
Gabriel Fauré:
Ici-bas; from Sonata No. 1 in A major: I. Molto allegro, II. Andante
Rêverie; Mai; Si mes vers avaient des ailes; Antoine Watteau from Portraits de Peintres; Fêtes galantes
Une barque sur l'océan from Miroirs
Des Abends from Fantasiestücke Op 12
From String Quartet in F Major, op. 135: III. Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo
Tickets: 800 982 2787 | fiaf.org
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