A poetic and mystical oratorio of the 21st century
Philosophies
Untitled, 2014, courtesy of Nicolas Roggy
Philosophies is a poetic and mystical oratorio from the 21st century. A creation by composer Hana Ajiashvili for French tenor Benjamin Alunni and United Instruments of Lucilin, on texts celebrating poets and thinkers across languages – English, French, Hebrew, Persian and Arabic – and spanning the centuries.
By including these new pieces alongside repertoire works, this oratorio follows a human soul in search of the wisdom of these thinkers to find its own balance, both spiritual and rational.
Created with librettist Royce Vavrek, Philosophies is a journey from obscurantism to enlightenment, a contemporary performance that digs into the past to offer a path to the future.
Libretto Royce Vavrek,
Compositions and musical design Hana David Ajiashvili
Voice/tenor Benjamin Alunni
Instrumentalists United Instruments of Lucilin
Executive Producer United Instruments of Lucilin in collaboration with Chant de Linos
Creation
21.05.2023 Theaters of the city of Luxembourg
27.05.2023 Tel-Aviv Art Museum Poem Balev Season
Renaissance work
At the end of the covid, a period which strongly questioned the artists and the meaning of their vocation, it became necessary to create a work with a humanist scope, alongside a team which represents this sense of the human without which a creation would only be lonely.
With several works created with United Instruments of Lucilin – Wonderfull Delux by Brice Pauset, Les Mille Endormis by Adam Maor at the Aix-en-Provence festival, … – It was important to me to initiate a new poetic, mystical and of cultural mixing.
We walked together to composer Hana Ajiashvili; I had to create his opera Cut Glass but once again the pandemic put too many obstacles in our way. We had to take revenge by creating a “work of rebirth” with multiple cultural hues. This is how the librettist Royce Vavrek, known for his opera libretti rooted in the present and traveling the world, joined us.
Marked by the Irish myth of the Vision of Tondal, the journey of a soul through time and languages became the theme that would run through our creation. I have embellished our story with several literary sources: a ballet song by an anonymous woman from Les Trouvères (12th century), the Persian and lyrical ode of Rûmî (13th century), the poetic and carnal prose of Israel Najara (18th century s.), the first writings published in Arabic by Khalil Gibran (XXth century) and the poetry-in-the-body of Laura Vazquez.
We asked composer Hana Ajiashvili to imagine a work that would hold together from start to finish, incorporating existing music, reinforcing this soul’s journey through time and aesthetics (Machaut, Rameau, Doiana Rotaru and Marcel Reuter) .
It is from this literary material that we imagined with Royce Vavrek and Hana Ajiashvili Philosophies, like a “poetic and mystical oratorio”.
Tenor and instrumental ensemble: clarinet, duduk, arghul, trombone, viola, viola d’amore, accordion and piano.
Based on an idea by Benjamin Alunni and United instruments of Lucilin
Creation
21.05.2023 Theaters of the city of Luxembourg
27.05.2023 Tel-Aviv Art Museum Poem Balev Season
As part of this creation, educational actions are carried out by the artistic team for young students in composition class.
Production
Chant de Linos, United Instruments of Luciline, The Theaters of the City of Luxembourg
Chant de Linos would like to thank its patrons for their support for the creation
ARTISTIC team
Membership | Hana Ajiashvili
Booklet | Royce Vavrek
Tenor | Benjamin AlunniUnited Instruments of Lucilin:Alto, viola d’amore | Danielle
HennicotClarinet, duduk | Max MausenTrombone | Benny SluchinPiano | Pascal MeyerAccordion | Frin Wolter
Artistic collaboration | Renelde PierlotLiterary advisors | Amandine Mussau, Leili Anvar, Jean-Philippe Rossignol
Courtesy of Laura Vazquez
Nicolas Roggy, Untitled, 2014, cortes de l’artiste
Based on an idea by Benjamin Alunni & Richard Brunel
Zylan will not sing anymore
As I was looking for a contemporary vocal repertoire, I discovered a melodrama composed on a text by Hervé Guiert, Fou de Vincent (Mad about Vincent). I was immediately struck by this meeting between different worlds that had never come together before until then: lyrical contemporary music, acknowledged homosexual love, a musical work for just one singer, straightforward language totally grounded in the eighties, problems generated by the Aids pandemic and its consequences on people’s lives. I was enthralled by the subject and the internal mechanism of this unpublished work commissioned for Sidaction in 1994 and I immediately felt like creating a monodrama, in a similar spirit around similar and updated topics.
The idea gained ground and I started sharing it with Youness Anzane and Richard Brunel who showed they were committed to questioning and challenging the different manifestations as well as the broadcasting methods of opera. It was essential for us that this monodrama should be aimed first and foremost at a new audience and at young people, at audiences that were either geographically distant or couldn’t be reached: deprived areas, suburbs, council estates, countryside, prisons, etc.…
We looked for a librettist in tune with the present day and, after approaching several of them, we were naturally drawn to Yann Verburgh, a young writer who’d produced all sorts of texts linked to homosexuality, often inspired by true stories all over the world.
The idea gained ground and I started sharing it with Youness Anzane and Richard Brunel who showed they were committed to questioning and challenging the different manifestations as well as the broadcasting methods of opera.
It was essential for us that this monodrama should be aimed first and foremost at a new audience and at young people, at audiences that were either geographically distant or couldn’t be reached: deprived areas, suburbs, council estates, countryside, prisons, etc.…
We looked for a librettist in tune with the present day and, after approaching several of them, we were naturally drawn to Yann Verburgh, a young writer who’d produced all sorts of texts linked to homosexuality, often inspired by true stories all over the world.
We then tried to envision together the starting point of a libretto, based on the true story of a pop singer, a star in his own country, an authoritarian and reactionary state. He was “suspected of being a homosexual” and disappeared in unexplained circumstances. This tragic occurrence could happen again. Homophobic hate incidents have been on the rise these last years in France, with 1870 victims of homophobic offenses in 2019, says Interior Ministry.
This grounding in the here and now led us to composer Diana Soh whose qualities in writing music which verges on real theatre and her ability to engage musicians’ bodies, whether they be singers or instrumentalists I admire. Thus together with this team, author Yann Verburgh, composer Diana Soh, director Richard Brunel and dramaturge Youness Anzane, I eventually took the plunge, at last getting closer to achieving the monodrama I’d been dreaming of.
Benjamin Alunni
Music order | Song of Linos – Benjamin Alunni
with the support of the Rothschild Foundation, Jean-François Dubos, William Kadouch-Chassaing, Emeric Languerand, Francis Laudette, Jean-Baptiste Massignon, Thomas Raoux-Cassin, Corinne Thouvenin
World premiere
Based on an idea by Benjamin Alunni and Richard Brunel
November 6, 2021
7.9.10.12.13.16.18 November 2021
Point du Jour Theater – Lyon Opera
ARTISTIC team
Composition | Diana Soh
Livret | Yann Verburgh
Mise en scene | Richard Brunel
Zylan | Benjamin Alunni
Guitare électrique | Maarten Stragier
Violoncelle | Loris Sikora
Percussion | Yi-Ping Yang
Dramaturgie | Youness Anzane
Scénographie | Stéphane Zimmerli
Costumes | Valérie Marinese et Mathieu Trappler
Lumières | Victor Egéa
Collaboration artistique | Catherine Ailloud-Nicolas
Assistanat à mise en scène | Valérie Marinese
Ateliers de construction décors et costumes | Opéra de Lyon
Production déléguée | Cie Anonyme – Les Indépendances
Coproduction Commande musicale | Chant de Linos
Coproduction | Cité de la voix, Opéra de Lyon,
Avec le soutien de la DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Benjamin Alunni
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