New Oratorio at Mostly Mozart Festival
Finnish Composer Saariaho Recounts the Life of Simone Weil
Aug 11, 2008
The Mostly Mozart Festival, hosted at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, is well underway. Entering its third week of five, the festival lasts from July 29th to August 23rd. As its name suggests, the festival features several works by the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Beyond Mozart: Music from the 21st Century
However, while celebrating the works of composers from the past, the festival also looks to the future, mixing in works from the 21st century with the late 18th century concertos and symphonies. The centerpiece at this year's festival will be music by the new composer-in-residence, Kaija Saariaho. The Finnish composer's oratorio Le Passion de Simone will receive its U.S. premiere this Wednesday, August 13.
Commissioned by the Wien Festival, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Barbican and Lincoln Centers, the oratorio has already been performed in Vienna, London, Helsinki and Stockholm.
La Passion de Simone is scored for solo soprano, choir, orchestra, and electronics, and the story covers the life and writings of French philosopher Simone Weil. The soprano acts as the narrator of Weil's life while the electronics repeat fragments of Weil's texts.
Saariaho worked with Amin Maalouf and Peter Sellars on the oratorio. This was not her first time collaborating with the Lebenese author and American theatre director (not to be confused with the British actor): Saariaho had worked with Maalouf and Sellars for her first two operas as well.
Le Passion de Simone: Blending the Secular and Sacred
Traditionally, an oratorio is primarily a sacred form, dealing with texts and subjects from the Judeo-Christian heritage. Unlike an opera, the dramatic narrative is not acted out, and the singers perform with minimal costume. The oratorio was meant to inspire worship, although it could be performed outside the church walls.
Saariaho's oratorio, however, deals with a subject outside of the biblical texts -the life of a French philosopher-and yet still treats that subject with reverence. Le Passion de Simone effectively blurs the line between sacred and secular and highlights the spiritual inspiration that Saariaho receives from Weil's work.
The oratorio itself is divided into 15 parts which Saariaho names stations. This format again connects the composition to a religious form, this time the passion plays of the church. Since a passion play recounts the 15 scenes from the life of Christ just before his death, Saariaho's use of the form draws parallels between Weil's suffering thirst for truth and Christ's.
However, Saariaho only uses the forms to draw a surface connection to the traditional religious music. She interlaces the music itself with modern electronics, mixing past and future in the same vein as the Mostly Mozart Festival.
Sources
Lunden, Jeff. "Simone Brought to Life in New Oratorio." August 9, 2008. NPR Music.
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