Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe, a self-made man on multiple levels: self-taught countertenor, opera director and performer (he only has a diploma for the latter). A guy with a unique profile who colors far more outside than inside the genre lines. Moreover, he likes to turn everything upside down. He wants to make classical music sound just a little less classical and handles the repertoire in his own unorthodox way. His underlying intention is to reach a broader audience. Whether he succeeds in this is an open question.
Madrigal
A madrigal (Lat. matricalis) is a short, polyphonic secular song. It was a beloved genre that was popular during the late Middle Ages, Renaissance and early Baroque. The madrigal reached its peak during the 16th century. Typical of this genre is that the music expresses the text (usually a poem) in an illustrative way (through word painting). The late madrigals received instrumental accompaniment and fewer vocal parts.
Meirhaeghe ventured into Claudio Monteverdi's spirited 'Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi'. He gathered a group of professional singers and dancers around him, turns their world upside down and takes them out of their comfort zone. The singers have to fill in the dance part and the dancers are promoted to singers. Meirhaeghe himself cannot read notes but is guided by his gut feeling, his instinct and imagination. The result of these 'Madrigals' is a rather uninspiring or uninspired production.
In the program booklet it reads: "Meirhaeghe kneads these buoyant vocal works about war and peace into a cry for freedom fueled by combativeness and passion. Thinking of the ancient Greeks, he creates a contemporary uninhibited orgy." Promise makes debt. To realize that, the characters would have to delve deep within themselves. A performance space is a place where things can emerge. A firing line where ideas explode. What happens on stage remains extremely superficial and neither touches nor engages. There is no straightforward structure in the buildup. The projected supertitles and staging are often at odds with each other. A production full of paradoxes.
The musicians wear clothes. Singers and dancers stand stark naked on stage. Must that be, I ask myself? Lea Daan, the éminence grise of the Flemish dance world, spoke wise words; 'veiling revealing' has more impact, speaks more to the imagination. The performers stand on stage in their birthday suits but wear a black band to which the amplification equipment is attached. Contradictory! One wears the band across the chest like a heart rate monitor, others at the waist and someone almost like a chastity belt.
Staging
A crack, a hollow is lit. A deafening sound fills the space. Is this the bubbling of the core of Mother Earth or pure electronic noise? From the crack, the entrance to the cave steps a naked woman. She stays in place moving for a while. Withdrawes into the cave. The noise dies down and makes way for a harmonious melody. The new music that Jesse Kanda composed for the Madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi alongside some original compositions by Monteverdi keeps the production afloat including the live musical performance provided by Madoka Nakamaru, Pieter Theuns, Rebecca Huber and Wouter Deltour.
The 'genius' that Meirhaeghe is credited with leaves me quite hungry. The choreographic aspect of the production is extremely meager. The performers run or crawl about the stage. They huddle together, lean forward and then back again, like a flower bud opening. Little inspired!
Asking an untrained voice to sing a madrigal is asking for trouble. It is at times an assault on the eardrums! Meirhaeghe creates a sort of Arcadia instead of a martial and passionate staging. A small campfire is lit on stage where everyone huddles together and sniffs each other a bit. Even a man with a guitar shows up, somewhere flashes of a youth camp or Uncle Bob sentiment. The dying fire is sprinkled with water, the heat source of a sauna. The line of a wellness center is continued when a lady with a towel starts waving around to spread the beneficial steam. They huddle together under a shower and infrared lamp. Sigh! Then there follows a well-behaved round dance. Boring. Two ladies have to provide eroticism by rubbing noses against each other, letting their tongues melt together. Is this orgasmic?
Smoke Screen
Much work goes into set elements, smoke, laser beams… A short film clip that has nothing to do with anything is also given to the audience. A disjointed production. At two moments you think 'pleasant and beautiful' when the voices in a madrigal resound together somewhere in the middle of the production and right at the end. The high expectations were not met. Meirhaeghe's 'Madrigals': "much to do about nothing". A exposé of too lofty an ambition. Only meager polite applause followed. The comments I heard here and there after the show: disappointment.
Information:
- Production: Muziektheater Transparant
- Concept and direction: Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe
- Music: Jesse Kanda, Claudio Monteverdi
- Musical direction: Wouter Deltour
- Film: Charles Dhondt
