MEDIATHEK

Alone on stage, the woman-Capricorno, wrapped in an impressive crinoline with an exaggerated sex organ, slowly removes her costume and begins a moulting process, like an initial path to the heart of a universe that is at once symbolic, mythical and dreamlike.

Chants Libres has remounted Canti del Capricorno, a performance opera by the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, which took him 10 years to compose. Canti del Capricorno is an important example of « re-invented musical notation », an important milestone for the creation of new forms of opera.

Scelsi’s music is performed by the mezzo-soprano Marie-Annick Béliveau, a rising star in contemporary opera, supported by five pre-recorded musicians.

An audacious performance piece requiring the meticulous skills of a watchmaker, Canti del Capricorno is a ritual, a staging of the sacred and the immortal, where music is stripped of all pretences to embrace all cultures.

«From Canti del Capricorno emerges the power of incantation that draws us to our roots, to that within each of us which is the least explored, our primitive instinct. Faced with this archaic panic, the only viable panacea emerges from its ritual forms, which elevates the sheer terror to savred ground by taking away its individuality and making it universal. In a way, Scelsi becomes the transmitter of this age-old tradition.

Glottal stops, nasal sounds, microtonic intervals, driving syllables or rolled rrr’s – the singing does away with all convention and reaches every culture, reflecting all of them.» – Georges Nicholson

«Sounds and unusual rhythms, mostly vibratos and glissandos that are particularly delicate, produce a mental state that touches us as much on an intellectual and psychic level as on an emotional level; out of this composite turmoil comes the images that build this musical presentation, directed by Pauline Vaillancourt with the help of a quality artistic team. This music seems to invite a theatrical transposition which allows an audience member who may be a neophyte about contemporary music to appreciate what a concert can bring to a lover of that kind of music. This seems to me an intelligent way to bring us into a universe so subtle and strong, which may seem, at the start, to be absolutely impervious.» – Guylaine Massoutre, Jeu #71 (Québec)