Works

Jules Verne (1987)

Fantasia da camera in forma di spettacolo per trio di percussioni, tre voci, tromba e pianoforte

Text by Giorgio Battistelli 

A writer that has always fascinated Battistelli with his grandiose tales into the imaginative dimensions of impossible journeys, Jules Verne is honoured here by three characters from his novels: Professor Lidenbrock  (A Journey to the Center of the Earth), Dr. Ferguson (Around the World in Eighty Days) and Captain Nemo (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), symbols of the relationships between man and the earth, air and sea. The protagonists meet in a living room furnished with the equipment necessary to complete their adventures. Each tells his own story trying to convince the others that he is the author’s favourite character. The opera can be performed by three musician-actors asked to carry out surreal theatrical actions or it can be performed by an ensemble of musicians and actors where the roles are distributed among various performers. It ends with Lidenbrock, Ferguson and Nemo in chorus singing, playing games and playing instruments together like children. An instrumental piece featuring bizarre objects that produce sounds is the protagonist of this dreamlike and very funny finale: a chain hoisted by a winch, a tub full of water that is kicked noisily, a sail that can be whipped, bricks that are disarranged, gravel to step on in a tantrum. In the meantime, the musicians playing the trumpet, xylophone, piano, and a sweep of large, small and strange percussion instruments have to pull their own weight in a performance of musical bravura. 


First performance:
Strasbourg, Centre Culturel Le Maillou, 24 September 1987
Trio Le Cercle
Michael Lonsdale, direction

Duration: 60’

 

Score number catalogue Ricordi: (134498)