Les Damnés
Eric Sleichim and BL!NDMAN [sax] opened the 70th Festival d’Avignon alongside the Comédie Française directed by Ivo van Hove. On the Cour d’Honneur of the Palais des Papes they present The Damned, after Luchino Visconti’s motion picture.
The Damned (or Les Damnés) is the account of the downfall of a wealthy industrialist family during the rise of power of the Nazis. Visconti confronts us with the dark side of human behaviour and shows us how easily this family conspires with an extreme-right regime, solely out of pursuit of gain. For his first collaboration with the Comédie Française Ivo van Hove asked Eric Sleichim once more to write the music for the performance.
For his first staging with the “Troupe” in 2016, Ivo van Hove revisited Les Damnés (The Damned), this sharply drawn chronicle of a family of industrialists during the 1933 Nazi seizure of power in Germany. He sees it is the “celebration of evil” in which ideological depravity and family perversions combine. Visconti said he was inspired by Shakespeare, and especially by Macbeth; for his part, Ivo van Hove takes us back to the ancient tragedies.
Ivo van Hove: direction
Eric Sleichim: music composition and sounddesign
Bart Van den Eynde: dramaturgy
Jan Versweyveld: set and light design
An D’Huys: costumes
Tal Yarden: video
la Comédie Française
Sylvia Bergé : La Gouvernante
Éric Génovèse : Aschenbach
Denis Podalydès : Konstantin von Essenbeck
Guillaume Gallienne : Friedrich Bruckmann
Elsa Lepoivre : Sophie von Essenbeck
Loïc Corbery : Herbert Thalman
Adeline d’Hermy : Elisabeth Thalman
Clément Hervieu-Léger : Günther von Essenbeck
Jennifer Decker : Olga
Didier Sandre : Joachim von Essenbeck
Christophe Montenez : Martin von Essenbeck
BL!NDMAN [sax]
Koen Maas: soprano saxophone
Roeland Vanhoorne: alto saxophone
Piet Rebel: tenor saxophone
Raf Minten: baritone saxophone
Agenda
“When I was in Rome last week, I went to see your Caduta degli dei and, although I follow your language very badly, I was very impressed by the strength, stature and insolence of the work. […] The combination of passions, all these bodies, this mixture of things from contemporary history, money, property, loneliness, politics and ambition, reminded me of some of the great works I have read and sometimes worked on. It only made me appreciate your film all the more”. In these words, which he addressed in 1969 to Luchino Visconti, Jean Vilar already highlighted the universality of The Damned, this bond with the “great works”, the damned of antiquity, the house of Atreus, Thyestes or Medea.
The July 2016 premiere in Avignon left a powerful impression, so strongly does this infernal machine resonate with our contemporary ears.
“In the archaism of the staging device, in which all the actors and technicians are presented to us as an ancient chorus, in the suffering nudity of bodies and spilt blood, we are given a glimpse into hell”, comments Éric Ruf.