On the occasion of the centenary of the composer’s birth, the Tempo Reale music research centre he founded, choreographer Simona Bertozzi and musician Claudio Pasceri intertwine knowledge and languages in a multidisciplinary performance that brings to light significant material from Berio’s repertoire, the result of surprising collaborations, and includes important pieces for solo cello.
On Friday 3 October at 9 p.m. at the Mattatoio in Rome, the Romaeuropa Festival will host the world premiere of Berio a colori, a multidisciplinary performance created from significant compositions by Luciano Berio on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, by and with choreographer and dancer Simona Bertozzi, cellist Claudio Pasceri, sound direction by Tempo Reale (Francesco Canavese and Francesco Giomi) and lighting by Luisa Giusti.
Berio a colori is a tribute to the great composer through the relationship between his music and different forms of expression.
On the one hand, there are the historic moving images created first by designer Bruno Munari and more recently by Italian photographers Roberto Masotti and Silvia Lelli, which are superimposed on two electronic works by Berio; on the other, there is Simona Bertozzi’s choreographic interpretation of two significant compositions for solo cello, performed by Claudio Pasceri, brought together for the first time to form a surprising and original picture.
The show, produced by Nexus Factory, Tempo Reale and EstOvest Festival, intertwines different materials: Berio’s compositions Visage, for electronic sounds and Cathy Berberian’s voice on magnetic tape (1961), Les mots sont allés…, a “recitative” for cello (1976-78), Sequenza XIV, for cello (2002) and I colori della luce (1963), presented in exclusive performances authorised by the composer’s heirs; Visioni su “Visage”, in which Roberto Masotti and Silvia Lelli visually interpret Visage (edited by Gianluca Lo Presti / Mammafotogramma) and rare videos by Bruno Munari and Marcello Piccardo.
‘For Les mots sont allés, I followed the idea of a language that loses its semantic consistency to become a sound body. Walking among fragments, suspensions, stammerings that become gestures, a continuously interrupted discourse that is constructed and unravelled,‘ explains Simona Bertozzi. ’For Sequenza XIV, I was guided by Berio’s words, which describe this score as a constant dialogue between horizontal and vertical, sound and noise, and as the development of “an expressive climate that is as unstable and diverse as ever”. Starting from these suggestions, I sought a body that opens up to a plurality of events and dynamic registers, in constant tension between what happens and what remains transparent, between origin, projection and personal reinvention’.
(from the press release)
