Director Joachim Schloemer Choreography Joachim Schloemer Musical Director Attilio Cremonesi Stage Design Jens Kilian Costume Design Jens Kilian Light Design David Finn Dancers Alice Gartenschläger, Olivia Maridjan-Koop, Graham Smith Musicians Collegium Musicum Köln, Marisa Martins (voc), Anna Radziejewska (voc)

Guest Performances 02/2002 - Hebbel-Theater Berlin (Festival TanzWinter), 07/2002 - Burghof Lörrach (STIMMEN-Festival), 06/2003 - Wiener Festwochen, 06/2003 - Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, 10/2003 - Oper Köln, 06/2005 - Holland Festival, 10/2006 - Theater Freiburg

Seeing with your ears, hearing with your eyes. Baroque laments and instrumental pieces, interpreted by two mezzo-sopranos, seven instrumentalists performing on period instruments as well as three dancers, convey a sensual experience that fills us with sounds and images.

Separation, loss and the blows of fate - big emotions have forever been inextricably associated with music: in the ancient myth, Orpheus sways the gods of the underworld with his beautifully moving lament and succeeds in breaking down the gates of death with his music. In the Baroque era, laments were a contemporary reflection of zeitgeist and elevated to vocal centrepieces of operas and cantatas as emotional highpoints and moments of internalised expressiveness.

Claudio Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna is the starting-point of this evening devoted to the lament as an art form. Laments shock and move me. They tell us about ourselves.

Joachim Schloemer