Productions

Pheasants


An original production of Musica Aperta. Created by Ignacio Alcover and Juan Uriagereka. Directed by Scott Morgan

Juan Uriagereka: script
Christopher K. Morgan: choreography
Robert Johnson: lighting
John Conway: sound
Robert Wight: executive director
Ignacio Alcover: artistic director

Premiering at the National Gallery of Art in 2010, Pheasants is a 90 minute concert-performance with a historical setting in 17th century Spain. The show was inspired by the transition of power in Europe from an imperial court to the new enlightened despotism as represented by the arranged marriage between Louis XIV of France to his cousin María Teresa, daughter of Philip IV of Spain in an exchange that would end the Thirty Years’ War. The exchange occurs at Pheasant Island in a ceremony organized by Diego Velázquez, the court painter. Through music, dance and drama, Musica Aperta peers beneath the canvas of Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas, a painting famous more for what it hides than what it shows: the absent daughter given to France in exchange for peace. Music by Bononcini, Fauré, Hindemith, King, Sollima, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev.

Musica Aperta


Actors: Natalie Burke and John Yilmaz
Dancers: William Smith* - Kathryn Pilkington *
Violin: Regino Madrid and Eva Cappelletti Chao
Viola: Kyung LeBlanc
Cello: Ignacio Alcover
Soprano: Rosa Lamoreaux
Piano: Kathryn Brake
Woodwinds: David Jones

*appearing courtesy of CityDance Ensemble

A Spring morning ca. 1656


Defense: Morning fury

Ô mort, poussière d'étoiles, Gabriel Fauré

Development: Garden games

Piano Preludes number 2, 10 and 14 , Dmitri Shostakovich

Control: At the Painter’s studio

Sonata No. 1 for cello and basso continuo, Giovanni Battista Bononcini;
Cretto for string quartet, Giovanni Sollima

Safety: A lullaby

Night of the flying horses, by Osvaldo Golijov

A fall afternoon, 1667


Force: Waking up

Cuarto for cello solo, by Ignacio Alcover

Preparation: Courage to speak

Amour, oiseau d’étoile, for piano and soprano, by Olivier Messiaen
Night of the Flying Horses, by Osvaldo Golijov

Defense: A tea-party

L’Ortolano for string quartet, by Giovanni Sollima

Queenside: Advantages of time travel

Cretto, Giovanni Sollima

A Masque written in 1660


Reduction: Ready to play

Vision fugitives, movements 2, 9 and 15, Sergei Prokofief

Opposition: An allegory

2nd movement of the Quartet for violin, clarinet, cello and piano in G minor, by Paul Hindemith

Triangulation: Only a game

Petite Overture for piano and die, by John King

Closing: A procession

Il me fuit, l’inconstant!, by Jean-Baptiste Lully


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