Csend etűdök

Two masterpieces of late 19th-century French sacred music make up the programme of this concert-hall celebration: Gabriel Fauré’s exquisitely beautiful Requiem and the Clovis Mass by the elderly Charles Gounod. Between the movements of the latter work, the audience will also become acquainted with four further gems from the Gallican tradition of church music, with one composition each by Alexandre Guilmant, Louis Aubert, Camille Saint-Saëns and Théodore Dubois.

Recirquel’s new production, Paradisum explores the myth of rebirth following the silence of a destroyed world, where the means of communication is the body, and the only common language is movement. The creatures of this idyllic existence unfold from the ever-changing, swirling natural forces of the ‘fabric of life’ that pulsates around them, so they can reach the anima mundi, the world soul, through scenes of purification, birth, awakening and ritual.

What happens when the heroes of Mozart’s opera are portrayed on stage not by singers, but by finely crafted marionette figures? The Salzburg Marionette Theatre’s production offers a barely one-hour version of this iconic piece from the opera repertoire: while preserving its essential musical and dramatic pillars, it guides the audience through Tamino, Pamina, and Papageno’s adventures in a more accessible, dense form.