ROMEO CASTELLUCCI TOGETHER WITH TEODOR CURRENTZIS PRESENT A NEW STAGING OF STRAVINSKY’S THE RITE OF SPRING IN THE WORK’S CENTENARY YEAR - PERFORMED BY MUSICAETERNA, ORCHESTRA OF PERM STATE OPERA AND BALLET THEATRE

One hundred years after its controversial premiere, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is reworked by visionary theatre-maker Romeo Castellucci. Castellucci will collaborate with Teodor Currentzis, Artistic Director of the Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre, and his orchestra MusicAeterna. This striking reworking will be presented in the industrial space of Manchester’s Mayfield Depot as part of this year’s Festival. Castellucci’s staging remakes what is conventionally a dance piece into an extraordinary theatre and art installation, creating choreography from falling bone powder. In a show without actors or dancers, the 100 piece orchestra will become part of the staging.

In an exhilarating departure from past productions, Castellucci explains “The bone powder is the main character on the stage. It looks as if the dancers got dissolved in the air, turning into a cloud of dust, powder… the dance of dust particles – the endless dance of the Universe.”

An electronic sound prelude created by Scott Gibbons will precede The Rite of Spring. Comprised entirely from sounds at the molecular scale, the piece will be created using a new type of microphone which is being developed at the University of Glasgow. Gibbons explains: “The sounds from this microphone are sampled, filtered, overlaid and processed in a quest to recognize and suggest patterns and stories from a place far beyond our species’ natural powers of perception, in which it is possible to hear the restless jostling of atoms and molecules.”

This vital new Rite, which celebrates the centenary of the work, will be subsequently performed in Perm, Russia, home to MusicAeterna, and also to Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned the original performance, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. The work’s debut sparked a riot in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, 1913 and ushered in a new kind of popular art and music, becoming one of the defining moments of 20th-century culture.

The Rite of Spring is commissioned and produced by Manchester International Festival and Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre.

More Details HERE.