José Saramago.
Uma visão apaixonada, sobre o homem que da Estátua descobriu a Pedra.
Perguntam-me não raras vezes:
- "Qual o livro de José Saramago que mais gostaste de ler?"
A resposta que pode ser dada a cada momento:
- "Impossível de dizer... não sei responder, não seria justo para com outros (livros) não nomeados. Mas uma coisa sempre soube. Uma obra de Saramago, enquanto "pseudo ser vivo" ou com "gente dentro" tem que me raptar, prender-me, não me deixar sair de dentro das suas páginas. Fazer de mim um refém, e só me libertar no final da leitura... mesmo ao chegar à última página. Aí, o "Eu" leitor que se mantém refém, liberta-se da "gente que a obra transporta dentro" e segue o seu caminho.
Mas segue um caminho que se faz caminhando, conjuntamente com mais uma família"
"Soprano Nikki Einfeld and baritone Daniel Cilli in Death With Interruptions
Credit: Maggie Beidelman"
"Last weekend, in its most ambitious program to date, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble mounted two chamber operas, both written within the last three years by Kurt Rohde.
Two new, good operas is a lot to ask of any composer, so it’s not disappointing that only one is enjoyable. Death With Interruptions, adapted from the José Saramago novel, has plenty of onstage help from some of the Bay Area’s best performers (including Volti Chorus), but fails to charm — and it tries, hard.
Like so many of Saramago’s stories, Deathhas a fantastical central conceit — a female Grim Reaper, who ultimately spares the life of her lover — that requires special care to come off. The book balances good writing with sufficiently large omissions, gaps to be perfectly filled in by the individual reader. But Rohde’s opera (finished in 2015 and revised this year) doesn’t have this advantage, and too much goes on, diluting any impact that might have been there. The music, though frequently changing, is forgettable, and redundant narration is especially irritating when the core characters are so tired." (...)
"Bay Area vocal ensemble Volti San Francisco, cellist Leighton Fong,
and baritone Daniel Cilli in Death With Interruptions
«No dia seguinte ninguém morreu».Assim começa este novo romance de José Saramago.Colocada a hipótese, o autor desenvolve-a em todas as suas consequências, e o leitor é conduzido com mão de mestre numa ampla divagação sobre a vida, a morte, o amor, e o sentido, ou a falta dele, da nossa existência.
Sinopse de apresentação da obra "As Intermitências da Morte" (2005)
O vídeo da ópera pode ser visualizado via YouTube aqui
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents "Death With Interruptions"
an opera in one act [2014-15]
"In a small Iberian country death decided to stop working.
At first everyone was overjoyed but soon all concerned –
the Church, the state, the undertakers, the insurance companies – realized that the situation was dire.
The Maphia offered temporary relief but could not really replace death. death decides to start working again but under new and more regular conditions those who will die will get a timely notice.
She informs the ministry of her intentions."
Recommendations for listening are either using earbuds or a high quality sound system; The limited sound production capabilities provided by laptop speakers will not optimally serve your listening experience.
____________
Leading Blank: Introitus Interruptio
SCENE I
Chorus: The situation was grave
death’s Letter
Chorus: We, here...
Dear sir,
I’ve got a letter for you...
Chorus: Don’t get upset
Like an innocent fool
SCENE II
Interlude I: Dance Mixed
Chorus: Even God has no idea
You look very pretty
I am going to give you one last chance
Chorus: death knows her man
Recitative: I have a big favor to ask...
Trio: death heard her cellist play
SCENE III
Interlude II: Vocalise
Chorus: death heard her cellist play
I only came to thank you
Recitative: I didn’t mean what you were thinking
You must fail sometimes...
I have a recollection
Pantomime: death turns away
Recitative: The wretched cellist
Please go away...
The letter
Trailing Blank: Exeunt
____________
Based on José Saramago’s novel "Death With Interruptions," translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Libretto by Thomas Laqueur/Music by Kurt Rohde
Matilda Hofman, Conductor/Directed by Majel Connery
Nikki Einfeld, soprano/Joe Dan Harper, tenor/Daniel Cilli, baritone
___
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble:
Leighton Fong, solo cello/Eric Zivian, piano/Loren Mach, percussion
Anna Presler, and Jory Fankuchen, violins/Phyllis Kamrin, viola/Tanya Tomkins, cello
Phil Acimovic, electronics
___
Volti San Francisco:
Robert Geary, Artistic Director/Sue Bohlin, Chorus Master
Notícia publicada no "IT The Irish Times", sobra a adaptação da obra de José Saramago - "As Intermitências da Morte", pela companhia An Taibhdhearc (National Irish Language Theatre).
"Death at Intervals review: A wealth of talent wasted on a facile idea"
This adaptation of José Saramago’s novel treats death as merely a narcissistic threat to the individual
by Peter Crawley
Death often wears a face in theatre and almost always comes with a task. He is God’s emissary, summoning Everyman to give a final account of his life; a practised debater in Death and the Ploughman, defending his actions; or someone in need of a holiday in the widely adapted La Morte in Vacanza. Now, in Kellie Hughes’s sepulchral stage adaptation of José Saramago’s magic realist novel, death is something quite ethereal: descending a black staircase in a red coat, with cascading hair as white as sea foam, and a fascinated expression. Death takes the striking form of Olwen Fouéré.
The object of her fascination is a musician of modest nature and mild ability, with no other distinguishing characteristics; less Everyman than Nobody. Played with a quiet, contained charm by Raymond Scannell, he sits at a grand piano that has been hollowed out to faintly suggest a coffin, playing sombre cadences with occasional flourishes. Like everything within Alma Keliher’s sound design, both music and voice here come amplified – Scannell, a gifted musician, is playing live, but you wouldn’t know it – and the effect makes action and consequence seem oddly divorced.
This may correspond with the narrative, which finds mortality on the fritz when death takes a holiday. In a nameless country, where everyone speaks as though through stolid translation, no one has died since the start of the year, and eternal life is taking its toll. In the story’s one intriguing idea, related by Fouéré like a calm parable, people begin smuggling their dead over the border where finality is still functional, like refugees from life.
Hughes concentrates instead on an extended duet between two nonentities: the personification of death, to which Fouéré lends her gravity and physical precision; and the barely sketched musician, to which Scannell lends his fingers.
Under Hughes’s direction, they approach each other with the warmth and passion of two glaciers. He is “troubled” by her, but “not afraid”. “Prudence only delays the inevitable,” she responds. Half an hour later, they’re still at it, laboriously wondering on the phone which of them is the cat and the mouse in this game.
Some will find it amusing to see death portrayed in this way, as an adolescent crush, the musician anxiously wondering why she hasn’t called. But a production that treats death as merely a narcissistic threat to the individual, or worse, a force that is stunned into marvelling submission by the glory of art, is confoundingly solipsistic. Is this woman life, wonders the oblivious musician at one point. “No, I’m much more complicated than that,” she responds. Sadly, with a wealth of talent addressed to a facile idea, this production doesn’t take her at her word.
Each of you has his or her own death, you carry it with you in a secret place from the moment you're born, it belongs to you and you belong to it
For millennia, death, with chilling precision, has brought an end to those selected to meet their destiny. But what would happen if death put away her emblematic scythe and withdrew from everyday life?
Inspired by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago’s darkly humorous novel As Intermitências da Morte (translator Margaret Jull Costa), Death at Intervals invites you into the surreal world of an otherwise unremarkable musician, who meets his own death in beguiling human form with surprising consequences.
The world premiere is adapted by Kellie Hughes in collaboration with theatre artist Olwen Fouéré, actor/musician Raymond Scannell and sound designer Alma Kelliher.
This collaboration brings together an exciting creative team which also includes lighting designer Michael Cummins, master carpenter Cillian Ó Súilleabháin and costume designer Niamh Lunny.
Combining theatre, music and original song lyrics, Death at Intervals interrogates our complex relationship with the grim reaper in an unconventional and touching duet between death and her musician.
Backstage at the Festival
21 July
Post–show talk with the company moderator, Prof. Patrick Lonergan, NUI Galway
"San Francisco, Estados Unidos, 17 mar (Lusa) -- A ópera "As intermitências da morte" ("Death with interruptions"), de Kurt Rohde, baseada no romance homónimo de José Saramago, estreia-se na quinta-feira, em San Francisco, no Estado norte-americano da Califórnia.
A ópera, com libreto do historiador Thomas Laqueur, tem duas récitas, já esgotadas, no ODC Theater, é encenada por Majel Connery e dirigida pela maestrina Matilda Hofman.
Esta não é a primeira vez que uma obra de Saramago é adaptada ao palco lírico, mas "As intermitências da morte" é a primeira ópera produzida pelo Left Coast Chamber Ensemble."
"SAN FRANCISCO ODC Theatre • Thursday, March 19, 2015 8PM
SAN FRANCISCO ODC Theatre • Saturday, March 21, 2015 8PM
ODC Theater 3153 17th St, San Francisco Buy Tickets
Additional free performance of Death with Interruptions only: 12:15pm, Monday, March 16, 2015 at Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley campus
Franz Schubert · Andante con moto from String Quartet No.14 in D Minor, D.810, “Death and the Maiden”
Kurt Rohde · Death with Interruptions adapted by Thomas Laqueur from the novel by José Saramago, presented in collaboration with Volti SF · WORLD PREMIERE
Left Coast presents a new dramatic musical work based on Nobel Prize winner José Saramago's novel Death with Interruptions. With music composed by Kurt Rohde and a libretto by the distinguished UC Berkeley historian Thomas Laqueur, the story recounts what happens when death, who lives in an unnamed Iberian country with her taciturn scythe, falls in love with the principal cellist of a local orchestra and fails to claim his life.
Death with Interruptions, the first LCCE opera production, is written for three solo singers (death, cellist, and scythe/dog/narrator); a chamber ensemble of solo cello, piano, percussion, offstage string quartet, and electronics; and a chamber choir of 16 voices. Soprano Nikki Einfeld, performing the role of death, is joined by baritone Daniel Cilli, tenor Joe Dan Harper, and noted Bay Area vocal ensemble Volti San Francisco, along with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble musicians featuring cellist Leighton Fong. Matilda Hofman will conduct; the director is Majel Connery.
The program opens with a contrasting take on the imagined embodiment of death––Franz Schubert's famous Andante con moto from String Quartet No.14 in D Minor, D.810, Death and the Maiden.
Opera running time: 90 minutes
Q&A with audience and artists after the final performance!
SPECIAL EVENTS
In conjunction with the opera's premiere, UC Berkeley's Dorren B. Townsend Center for the Humanities will host two discussions with noted scholars and artists. These talks are free of charge and all are welcome to attend. For detailed updates check the Townsend Center websites.
The Art and Craft of Translation
Wednesday, March 18, 5-7pm
Location on the UC Berkeley Campus, TBA
The longtime translator of José Saramago's work, Margaret Jull Costa, joins in a discussion with other noted translators: Paula Varsano (Chinese), Dennis Washburn (Japanese), and Robert Alter (Hebrew).
Making an Opera
Thursday, March 19, 12-2 pm
The Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley
Mary Ann Smart (UC Berkeley, Music) leads a discussion about the new opera, Death With Interruptions, with librettist Thomas Laqueur, composer Kurt Rohde, director Majel Connery and Shalom Goldman (co-librettist of the Philip Glass opera Akhnaten).“
“In this re-imagined tale of the Orpheus myth, it is death that rises to the land of the living, passing through the music of mankind, becoming more and more human as she fulfills her journey,” explains composer Kurt Rohde. “As desire takes hold, death decides to love, which means she has to become human and relinquish her authority. Things get messy when living the lives we do, subconsciously operating on the premise that death will take us someday, suddenly we get a new book of rules to work with and no one knows exactly what to do next. Not even death.”
