RICARDO FRAYHA
producer

The Song of the Earth is one of Gustav Mahler's last works, in which existential anguish and sublime grandeur are in an almost perfect conjunction. Mahler created almost exclusively symphonies and song cycles, and it was in these forms that he developed his unique creation, achieving in these two musical domains a brilliant and unmistakable synthesis. Mahler composed music for some Chinese poems because he found a deep identification with the spirit of those poems. Choosing six out of eighty-three poems from a collection of Chinese poets, authored by Li-Tai-Po, Tchang-Tsi, Mong-Kao-Yen and Wang-Wei, great Chinese poets of the 13th century. All of these poems speak of the Earth, nature and the solitude of man within these elements. Mahler mixed these stories with his life experiences creating The Song of the Earth as a personal and deeply moving document from his last period of creation.

 

Yoshi Oida creates for this work a moment in which all the splendour of the Earth and nature are expressed. The cleanliness and precision of a Japanese Zen garden is the ideal scenic space for this representation, where the two singers, and four actors representing monks in a Buddhist monastery, all Brazilians, express all the melancholy and sadness for the Earth in its decline, the current moment when the ecological crisis here arises as a crisis that crosses the scientific question, advancing on man, lord and destroyer of nature. The topicality of this theme, of this lament for a nature that in all its splendour is running out, is shown in its entirety in Chinese poems and in the scenic images created by Yoshi Oida.

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YOSHI OIDA

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Born in Japan, is an actor, director and author based in Paris. Oida was trained in traditional Japanese theater, before going to France in 1968, where he joined Peter Brook's group, participating in many of his most important productions. A few years later Oida started directing plays and operas worldwide, using a unique combination of Eastern and Western theater techniques. Oida is what his best-known book suggests in his title: an adrift actor. He is immortalised with the English director Peter Brook, through the various collaborations, but also through the films in which he acted, such as the cinematic version of Brook's Mahabharata, also Peter Greenway's The Pillow Book and more recently Silence , by Martin Scorcese. His books on acting techniques, An Actor Adrift , The Invisible Actor and An Actor's Tricks , have become anthological and have been translated into several languages. Acclaimed in France, where he lives, he was awarded the titles of Chevalier (1992), Officier (2007) and Commandeur (2013) de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

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THE SONG OF EARTH

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by GUSTAV MAHLER

direction YOSHI OIDA

conductor ÉRICA HINDRIKSON

set design and costumes TOM SCHENK

lighting HENRY VAN NIEL

assistant director SAMUEL VITTOZ

musical coordination RICARDO FUKUDA

assistant conductor ANDREY IVANOV

pianist HELDER CAPUZZO

 

with

mezzo-soprano MASAMI GANEV

tenor MIGUEL GERALDI

orchestra ENSEMBLE INSTITUTO FUKUDA

monks FABRÍCIO LICURSI, GUM TANAKA, JIMMY WONG, TOSHI TANAKA

 

technical director JULIO CESARINI

production assistant MARIANA MASTROCOLA

stage manager LARA BORDIN

light coordinator PATRÍCIA SAVOY

light operator IGOR SANE

sound coordinator RODRIGO GAVA

sound operator DANILO CRUVINEL

technicians ENRIQUE CASAS, FERNANDO ZIMOLO, RAFAEL DE ALCÂNTARA, WANDERLEY WAGNER DA SILVA

graphic design ÉRICO PERETTA

 

production  CENACULT PRODUÇÕES, PROD.ART.BR

production directors JULIA GOMES, RICARDO FRAYHA, RICARDO MUNIZ FERNANDES

support Funarte, Japan Foundation

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Realisation: Sesc SP

Teatro Paulo Autran - Sesc Pinheiros

São Paulo, SP, Brazil

16/12/2017 to 14/01/2018