s
*Accattone*
after Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975)
With music by
*Johann Sebastian BACH* (1685-1750):
Excerpts from cantatas BWV 48-138-105-6-109
Benny Claessens, Elsie de Brauw, Anna Drexler, Sandra Hüller, Steven Scharf,
Steven van Watermeulen, Lukas von der Lühe, Mandela Wee Wee, Pien Westendorp,
Lien Wildemeersch, Jeff Wilbusch _actors_
Dorothee Mields _soprano_
Alex Potter _contertenor_
Thomas Hobbs _tenor_
Peter Kooij _bass_
*Collegium Vocale Gent*
*Christoph Siebert*
*Johan Simons* _director_
Muriel Gerstner _stage design_
Anja Rabes _costume_
Wolfgang Göbbel _light_
Steven Prengels _soundscapes_
Will-Jan Pielage _sound design_
Koen Tachelet _dramaturgy and adaption_
Tobias Staab _dramaturgy_
Jan Vandenhouwe _music dramaturgy_
Jens Van Durme _collaboration musical dramaturgy_
He lies and steals, forces women into prostitution and preaches conflict. For the anti-Messiah Accatone (literally “beggar”), work is a burden, he and his companions do not define themselves through property, status or social function. Pushed out into the desert-like margins of the capitalist world, similar to a Dantesque hell, Pasolini’s heroes of the “sub-proletariat” are fighting for survival. Instead of obeying bourgeois concepts of values and morality, they follow their instinct and worship the intensity of the moment. For this reason Pasolini saw the potential in this “sub-proletariat” for a new social and political order.
Johan Simons’ production takes this perspective as the point of departure for a music theatre project in which Pasolini’s text and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach are placed in a new relation to each other. Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent use Bach’s cantatas to generate a creative tension between the promise of heavenly redemption and earthly reality, which finds powerful visual expression in the Kohlenmischhalle (coal mixing hall) at Zeche Lohberg in Dinslaken, which is being used here as a performance venue for the first time.
Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. With friendly support of RAG-Stiftung and RAG Montan Immobilien.
A production by Ruhrtriennale and NTGent.