I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me. — Patti Smith

Tosca

En opera i tre akter av Giacomo Puccini

Arrangert, bearbeidet og fremført av

Mathieu van Bellen og Mathias Halvorsen

I år presenterer vi vår første helaftens opera (Puccinis Tosca) i en ekstatisk, utagerende og ekstremt anlagt versjon for fiolin, piano og undertekster (utviklet av PODIUMs egen Ida K. Hatleskog).

Halvorsen and the Dutch violinist Mathieu van Bellen perform the opera "La Bohème" as a mentally silent film production. The entire score is divided between these two instruments, without missing a single note. Regardless of the singers, who do not exist, the two musicians follow Puccini's detailed playing instructions, at the end they even reach the actual Toscanini tempi. Van Bellen sometimes seems to grow a sixth and seventh finger and Halvorsen two more hands, especially in the second act, when they let the Bohemians rejoice in the hustle and bustle of Montmartre, with its intermixing of children's choir and military band. Off to the right of the musicians, texts and stage directions are projected on a large screen, so that in the minds of the audience Rodolfo's attic room, the streets of Paris, and Mimi's deathbed come to life more vividly than on any opera stage. Pucchini's music, liberated from all its furnishings, reaches right into the unguarded regions of the listener's vulnerable heart, allowing the audience to indulge with unfettered delight in the play between virtuosity and kitsch.

Julia Kaizer, Neue Muszikzeitung