Staged Night

Plays from the past are often staged in productions which change the time and place of the action or even the text itself. When it comes to music, however, historically informed interpretations which seek to recapture the performance style of a given era are now the norm. But what would it sound like if older musical works were adapted to modern-day musical sensibilities? How could they be made to sound just as threatening, dream-like or sad as they did when they were first performed?

By exaggerating the falling cadences and slow tempi of a Bach aria, creating an ethereal orchestration for Schumann's “Träumerei” [Daydream], shifting the aria of the “Queen of the Night” to a techno party, and injecting so much suspense into Ravel's “Scarbo” it sounds like a horror soundtrack, the Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen redefines the content of historic works by breathing new life and meaning into them. He's fascinated by the way the audience’s reception changes over the course of an evening, which is the common denominator of all the works he chooses to include. The direction sets out to intensify the uncertainty: unnaturally amplified creaks, scene changes made in total darkness, performers feeling their way into their places—could they be sleepwalking?

Deactivating vision serves to heighten both our sense of hearing and the audience's expectations.