Bühnenszene Pinocchio — © Patrick Berger / artcompress

Philippe Boesmans und Joël Pommerat — © Patrick Berger / artcompress

Philippe Boesmans — Pinocchio

During a stormy night, lightning strikes an old, solitary tree in a garden. The honest man dwelling there without a wife or children cuts a piece of wood off the tree and decides to whittle a puppet. He pads it in order to simulate meat and bones. Soon the wooden puppet starts to talk, to be hungry, to object and to complain about the fact that it has to live with such a poor man… who sends it to school – and with a used book to boot! The good-natured fool of a man sells his coat in order to obtain a new book, which the puppet immediately sells on. Before it even crosses the threshold of the school, it makes the acquaintance of a number of sinister fellows – thieves, murderers, dubious judges – and has a series of painful experiences. At the last minute, it is saved by a fairy that has been watching over it. But can this modern-day Pinocchio overcome its trials and turn into a real little boy?

In 2008, dramatist and director Joël Pommerat published this new version of Carlo Collodi’s famous fairy tale. In the description of his work he refers to a palimpsest in which the original text was covered by another manuscript. Whereas the majority of the numerous earlier adaptations – in particular the version created by Walt Disney in 1940 – made an attempt at softening the bitter but at the same time grandiose cruelty of a text whose moralising and pedagogical undertones are repeatedly undercut by its contradictions, Joël Pommerat endows his version with all its original severity and modernity. His Pinocchio is a confused, naive and cheerful creature which has to cope with the harshness of our world and the grown-up people in it – a wooden puppet, whose only misdemeanours are the faults typical of our times and who almost by chance discovers the key to its humanity.

Philippe Boesmans chose Pommerat’s version of Pinocchio for his seventh opera after their first collaboration on Au monde in 2004. Boesmans, who for more than thirty years has been a leading member of the world of opera, is one of the few composers who have been working in this genre continuously. Each new creation has been hailed by critics and audiences alike and confirms his position as a master of the genre. La Ronde (1993), Le Conte d’Hiver (1999) and Julie (2005) have had a determining influence on the history of the opera during the last decades. In 2014, he received one of the most prestigious honours – his personal plaque was put up in the auditorium of La Monnaie opera house in Brussels, between those of Verdi and Mozart.

This co-production with the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, La Monnaie de Bruxelles and the Opéra national de Bordeaux offers the opportunity of re-encountering the exceptional music director Emilio Pomarico who, in 2015, conducted a Wozzeck anthology in Dijon with a renowned cast, including Vincent Le Texier, Stéphane Degout, Yann Beuron and Marie-Eve Munger. (Festival d‘Aix-en-Provence)

New production by Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. In cooperation with La Monnaie / De Munt, Opéra de Dijon and Opéra national de Bordeaux.

Zauberhaftes Musiktheater
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

direct et raffiné
Le Monde

Savante alchimie des timbres instrumentaux
Télérama

beautifully made
Financial Times

 

published on 16. September 2017 in Werke

3 July 2017

8 p.m.

Aix-en-Provence, Grand Théâtre de Provence Festival d’Aix-en-Provence Pinocchio UA

Tickets

Philippe Boesmans — Pinocchio UA

libretto, director: Joël Pommerat

Pinocchio: Chloé Briot 
Mauvais élève entraineur, ami de Pinocchio: Julie Bouliane
Directeur de petit cirque: Stéphane Degout 
Le Père: Vincent Le Texier

Klangforum Wien

Fabrizio Cassol, saxophon
Tcha Limberger, violin
Philippe Turiot, accordeon

conductor: Emilio Pomàrico

The story invented by the Tuscan writer Carlo Collodi in 1881 describes the many adventures of a puppet following his whims and desires. After playing hooky from school to follow two miscreants, Pinocchio lets himself be drawn into the world of toys with a number of successive roles – a donkey, in a circus and in the belly of a whale – until the day arrives when the puppet transforms himself into a responsible little boy.

After turning his play Grâce à mes yeux (Thanks to my Eyes) into his first opera, presented at the 2011 Festival d’Aix, Joël Pommerat returns with this creation of an opera for all audiences, to the music composed by Philippe Boesmans. Pinocchio will mark his second collaboration with the Belgian composer – the first gave rise to the opera Au Monde created in 2014.

The staging is at the crossroads of wonderland and reality. It looks at the real world through the concrete vision of a tree trunk that takes shape under the carpenter’s plane to create a theatre of planks and trestles. This creation brings together the Ensemble Klangforum from Vienna in the orchestra pit and several on-stage musicians, under the baton of conductor Emilio Pomarico. Stephane Degout swaps his costume of Pelléas for that of the leader of the troupe whose main mission is to tell the story, while Chloé Briot, with her experience in playing children’s roles (Yniold in 2016 and the title role of L’Enfant et les sortilèges in 2012) plays the puppet. (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence)

New production of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. In coproduction with La Monnaie / De Munt, the Opéra de Dijon, and the Opéra national de Bordeaux.

7 July 2017

8 p.m.