pitié! ERBARME DICH! les ballets C de la B / Alain Platel / Fabrizio Cassol

For many it will be bordering on sacrilege: how can anyone play around with the most important works of a genius such as Johann Sebastian Bach? When the concept of the participating artist is compelling, is the answer. As is the case with this new production by director Alain Platel and composer Fabrizio Cassol. And the work? One of the most important in the history of music: Matthew’s Passion.

In pitié! Platel and Cassol will not simply adapt the work – they are interested in one important aspect of the Passion: a mother’s pain when it comes to the sacrifice of her child. Of course Maria supports what the Son of Man has in mind, however she would much prefer to sacrifice her life instead of his. This dilemma constitutes the dramatic foundation of pitié! 

Against this background Fabrizio Cassol has cast his singers: one soprano voice for the mother and two very similar voices (mezzo-soprano and counter tenor) for the two souls of the child. Musicians such as Magic Malik (flute and voice), Tcha Limberger (violin), Pierre Thurlot and Krassimir Sterev (accordeon) will join the trio Aka Moon.

The musical and spiritual starting point for pitié! is the aria Erbarme Dich, mein Gott, one of the key arias in the whole of Bach’s body of work. And the question preoccupying Alain Platel: Is it beyond our capacity to sympathise with pity, pure and simple? There is an expression: pity is frequently based on jovial condescension– and yet we often long for a genuine, profound pity.

Matthew’s Passion questions this pity in the most radical way. Above all it deals with the ultimate sacrifice that a man can make – that of himself. Alain Platel and his dancers want to pursue the answers to this question.  They will do this by building on their experiences from vsprs (RuhrTriennale 2006) – the most intense emotional states then translated into expressive physical form.