Creation : le 14/03/2008 – Toboggan de Décines as part of the Biennale Musique en Scène de Lyon
Composition : Mauro Lanza
Vidéos : Paolo Pachini
Commissioner : Commande de l’Etat Français
Coproduction : Fondation Royaumont / Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie / GRAME, centre national de création musicale, GMEM, centre national de création musicale, Le Fresnoy, studio National des arts contemporains, Les Percussions de Strasbourg
With the support of : SACEM, DICREAM, Nuovi Mecenati, Fondation Salabert, Ars Musica Festival and the Fondation Orange
Musicians : 6 percussionists, 6 singers (Neue Vocalsolisten), electronics and video projections on several screens
Duration : 70′
A multimedia performance by Mauro Lanza and Paolo Pachini, for six voices, six percussion instruments, electronics and eight videos based on texts by Leonardo da Vinci, Descrizione del Diluvio follows An Index of Metals (by Fausto Romitelli and Paolo Pachini, 2003) as an attempt at total art where sounds and images merge into a single perceptual bubbling. Leonardo da Vinci’s texts are phonetic paintings in which the play of phonemes imitates the whirlpools of water. Although Leonardo classifies, counts and details the misfortunes of the flood with clinical rigour, his tongue is carried away by the fury of the sounds. True sound poetry of the indistinct, echoed by two famous engravings by the master. It is natural that these astonishing texts, claiming to be science but yielding to art, inspired the composer Mauro Lanza and the video artist Paolo Pachini. As with Leonardo, where art seeks emotion through objectivity, contemporary music and video achieve expressiveness through technological discipline. Moreover, in the magma of sounds describing the Flood, we can see the dawn of this overthrow of modern opera, which is no longer Dramma per musica – drama for music – as it once was, but Dramma dalla musica – drama through music. As with Leonardo, from sounds comes history, and from history comes images. The Royaumont Foundation is happy to continue, with two major artists of the young Italian creation, the adventure begun five years ago with Fausto Romitelli in search of an operatic form resolutely turned towards technology, opera-video, but where technology serves poetry. This ambitious work is also the fruit of a long collaboration between the Royaumont Foundation and the Studio National des Arts du Fresnoy, the GRAME and the GMEM Centres Nationaux de Création Musicale, the Monnaie de Bruxelles, and benefits from the internationally recognised talent of its performers: the Percussions de Strasbourg, the Neue Vocalsolisten. Descrizione del Diluvio a d’ors and already has ten performances scheduled in Lyon, Brussels, Marseille, Royaumont, Rome, Milan and Stuttgart. Marc Texier Artistic Director of Voix Nouvelles – Royaumont Foundation