HAENDEL
Creation 5th of march 2007 at CNSMDP de Paris. Coproduction : Cité de la Musique
Musical direction : Nicolau de Figueiredo
Staging : Emmanuelle Cordoliani
Choreography : Victor Duclos
Scenography : Alice Laloy
Assistant scenography and props : Émilie Roy
Costumes : Julie Scobeltzine
Lights : Bruno Bescheron
Video : Frédéric Martin
Make-up and wigs : Karine Deest
Alcina reigns as a magician on the ruins of past and present civilizations, as well as those to come.
He reigns just dreams reign half of our life over the rubble of reality.
Through her, the nature resumes all its rights and those beyond: the unthinkable, the monstrous, the inconceivable, the inequitable, the cruel, the gross, the extraordinary. She is the terrible and magnificent queen of a court of subjects, freed of all social, family and cultural links, which defined them upon their arrival on the island, by the madness of their love for her.
Only dreams and archaic memory are left. Sometimes, without noticing it, they open the carcass of an umbrella when it snows, but bad weather, which are subtle reflections of the Alcina’s moods, does not frighten them more than rain frightens fish.
Imperceptibly they become what they have always profoundly been: a piece of earth, a running horse, a beautifully supple tree, the foam of the wave indefatigably caressing the beaches of Alcina’s island. But their love is infinite.
Alcina herself can only love excessively and be lost for some centuries by a beautiful knight who comes and goes. But if her decline is in the nature of things, as are progress and Enlightenment promoted by Melisso the encyclopedist, so is her eternal return.
