Schwanengesang D744 at La Monnaie

Schwanengesang D744 : joined by a singer and an actress, Romeo Castellucci takes Schubert’s lied and builds a scenic recital. He invites the audience to listen to Schubert in a desolate setting which makes the disconcerting nakedness of the theatre tangible and also demonstrates its power. ‘What I produce is due to my understanding of music and pain,’ wrote Schubert in his diary in 1824. The singer expresses this pain and other emotions through a number of Schubert’s finest lieder. And in the darkness the director wonders : ‘How is it possible that this singer knows my innermost feelings better than I do ? What is the origin of this music which manages to make such a deep impression on me ? Where do my tears come from, void of content and so far removed from the sentimentality I loathe ?’