In Grieghallen´s basement rehearsal room, figures in tattered grey sing Händel as they shuffle towards a table where soup is ladled from a vast battered pot. The scene is bleak. We are in Ireland – or it could be Norway – in some kind of timeless misery with freezing weather and famine, where the country´s distant officials have long ceased to care, and where the church is struggling between old-school hell-fire authority and its need to offer succour.
Tag: Bergen International Festival
Our anniversary season
A new season, a special season – our 10th anniversary as a company – and a great deal to celebrate. Two days ago, our new brochure landed in the office, filling the air with that curious acrid new print smell which both excites and intoxicates. We dived into its gold-wrapped pages, flipped through the pages, […]
Marco Polo @ Festspillene, backstage drama and fine beer in Riga
Tan Dun´s music always attracts a polemic clash between those who love the exotic carpet of sounds, and those who take issue with his East/West collision of styles and his unabashed contradictions in expressing musical traditions. The argument has long raged between cultural commentators: whether East and West should attempt to blur the edges of […]