Intro

Prova d'Orchestra

Giorgio Battistelli (1953)

From 12/03/2006 in Antwerp - from 22/03/2006 in Ghent

• Musical direction: Luca Pfaff
• Director: Andrea Schwalbach
• Dirigent: Stephen Owen
• Concertmeester: Philip Sheffield
• Eerste cello: Corinne Romijn
• Eerste klarinet: David Barrell

Following the successful world creation of Richard III last season, Flanders Opera is again programming a work by the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli. This is Battistelli’s second scenic work inspired by a great Italian film director, after Teorema (1991-’92), for which he draw from Pasolini.

Prova d’Orchestra (1995), based on Federico Fellini’s eponymous ‘lyrical documentary’ about a turbulent orchestra rehearsal, poses essential questions about art and society, and, more in particular, about the life of professional musicians and the institution of the orchestra. Both in Fellini’s work and in Battistelli’s ‘6 musical scenes for the end of the century’, the symphonic orchestra is a highly charged symbol: a microcosm of Western society, cosmopolitan and closed at the same time, under great external pressure and torn by internal tensions, or, as the composer calls it, ‘a space/society where irrational things happen that refer to death and to political and moral impotence’. In Prova d’Orchestra, Battistelli’s most celebrated work so far, singers perform the roles of orchestra members.

Team

• Musical direction
  Luca Pfaff
• Director
  Andrea Schwalbach
• Set design
  Anne Neuser
• Costumes
  Anne Neuser
• Chorus master
  Kurt Bikkembergs
•  
• Dirigent
  Stephen Owen
• Concertmeester
  Philip Sheffield
• Eerste cello
  Corinne Romijn
• Eerste klarinet
  David Barrell
• Harp
  Xenia Konsek
• Tuba
  Wilfried Van den Brande
• Eerste trombone
  Lien Haegeman
• Tweede viool
  Anja Van Engeland
• Eerste trompet / Orkestregisseur
  Mireille Capelle
• Eerste percussie
  Jeroen de Vaal
• Tweede percussie
  Anja Wilbrink
• Kopiist
  Piet Vansichen