Pauline and her power-women Trio want to celebrate her 200th birthday in style.
But one after the other, from Robert & Clara Schuman, to Chopin, Liszt, Mörike, George Sand & her son Maurice, even Paulins husband Louis (and her lover Turgeniev) cancel! Is it because of the pandemic, or that the railroad has not been built to where they live? Ill health or because they’d rather go hunting? Whatever the reason, nothing seems to go right.
The ladies try everything, moving the party to the garden, onto a boat – but the weather won’t play along! But what about Spain? We could do it there! What currently is not possible in Switzerland is still an option in Spain!
The Gods of the theater smiled on us!
Little did we know that besides putting on the show on the day of Europe, we also were the show to re-open the Teatro di Motril after a years closure due to Covid.
It was an honour and a very special occasion to do so!
With planning of live events being made impossible in Switzerland due to the ever-changing pandemic, our May concerts in Dornach, Switzerland sadly had to be cancelled.
But, we are happy to say we get to work on and show our 200th Birthday Party of Pauline Viardots with her and some contemporaries music pieces, in the fabulous Teatro Calderon in Motril, Spain – as well as in a privat living-room concert at El Molino de Cajiz.
We are also preparing a stream version for our Swiss audiences on the original performance dates and hope to pick the project up live again in Switzerland in better days in the near future!
My part was and is to string the music together with a story which has been fun and educational, reading up on the power-house that was Pauline Viardot.
A great read, if you’re interested, is The Europeans by Orlando Figes.
And something more to share – due to the year of the Pandemic in filmed form rather than live:
My “Acting in English” Students (an elective subject at one of the local High-Schools) created their own monologues which we filmed and here is the result:
The elective course of Acting in English at the Gymnasium Münsterplatz that I’ve had the pleasure to run from last August came to an end with a workshop performance of the things we had worked on in the last couple of weeks on Wednesday January 29th at 7pm.