Duo Rusalka
The Duo regularly collaborates with the dancer Bianca Bonaldi, the storyteller Olivier Burkhalter and the writer Giovanni Perotto, who is the main author of the proposed texts and projects. Duo Rusalka is regularly invited to perform as part of many concert seasons (Les Concerts de Grandson, the Midi-Concerts season at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne, La Villa du Châtelet in Evian, Le Festival du Bois qui Chante in Chateau d'Oex, the Lunch-Concerts at the Centre le Phénix in Fribourg, the concerts at the Château de la Doges in La Tour-de-Peilz, the Aperitif-concerts at the Château Mercier in Sierre, the Festival Omaggio a Cava Grande in Sicily and the Festival dell'Alta Val Nervia in Castel Vittorio in Liguria).
Particularly sensitive to the social aspect of music, Valentina Rebaudo and Irene Puccia are members of Les Concerts du Coeur, an association which wishes to make music part of the daily life of the elderly, hospitalized, incarcerated or disadvantaged, in order to bring solace and healing through high quality concerts.
To date, three musical programs have already been created: Portraits of love, Travelling in the wind, Influences and Clara: the composer.
Clara: the composer
“I cannot be so bad when everybody is so fond of me” C. Schumann
The story of Clara Schumann is that of a female artist born in a time when only men were composers.
Telling Clara Schumann’s story is speaking of her great love for Robert Schumann, a man losing his mind.
Clara Schumann’s story is that of her relationship with another man, the great Johannes Brahms who will dedicate to her most of his compositions and who will pass away a mere 11 months after her death.
Telling Clara Schumann’s story is speaking of her extensive correspondance with her husband, he Father, Brahms and with her children to whom she will ask to destroy all written trace relating to jer life.
The story of Clara Schumann is that of a woman capable of express feelings triggered by love, separation, rejection, the arrival of spring, the beauty of nature or even the carress of moon rays on a woman’s complexion in a sublime manner.
In Clara: the composer, Duo Rusalka retraces the life of an emblamatic figure of the Romantic era showing to what extent the numerous musical voices of her heart were entwined.
Influences
Influences is a journey of music, dance and speech whose aim is to make the rhythm of an ancient drum resonate within us. In silence, the public will be able to follow it and thus enter into a game of influences that they will recognise. They will become aware that we all bear traces of cultures, languages, religions and peoples who have met, confronted and offered each other a part of themselves. We invite you to discover this spiritual heritage present in all of us, born of exchange, dialogue and love for beauty. The journey will follow a map of Europe, from Spain via Hungary, Italy and the Balkans, eventually arriving in the Middle East. Along our way we will find a kaleidoscope of sometimes persecuted cultures, a map of religions that have found in art a means of dialogue, a collage of different languages that make the deepest strings of our souls vibrate.
Travelling in the wind
We take you on a musical journey throughout different cultures, all connected to our deepest origins. The voyage starts by introducing us to folk music, which belongs to all of us (like the Romanian Dances by Bartok), but we're soon taken through tragedy, first encountering the depths of despair with the Shoah, as experienced and transformed into music by Olivier Messiaen whilst detained in a concentration camp. We then come to discover how music has the ability to save humanity, giving hope in the face of such horrors : it is an ancient melody from Catalan folklore, the Song of the Birds, which will bring us to the end of our journey. It will open like a window on history, leading to a true awareness of the powerful alliance of music and peace. From the beginning to the end, we will be carried by the wind and by the power of music, which know no boundaries.
Portraits of love
The programme takes us to a fairytale land of music, where we will meet various heroines and women of exception telling of their confrontation with the most overwhelming of all human emotions: love. The story is told in the language of opera, which so perfectly marries theatre and music, and often finds its inspiration in the tales passed down through generations - like Rossini and Mozart drawing on fairy tales for their operas Cinderella or The Magic Flute. The sky map in which the public is invited to wander is shaped by celebrated melodies made famous by our four heroines, which will reveal the ever so different faces of love through the voices of Gilda in Rigoletto, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, Carmen and finally, Rusalka. Music and lyrics create a sublime counterpoint that will allow audiences of all ages to access a universe which is both earthly and supernatural.
Duo Rusalka
