Cassol: Pitié (nach der Matthäus-Passion von Bach)

Aka Moon, Brett-Crowther, Monica, Claycomb, Laura, Givens, Melissa, Malik, Magic, Zavalloni, Cristina

CYP 0604

“Pitié!” is a collaboration of Fabrizio Cassol and Alain Platel and was inspired by Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, transposed into a musical style interwoven with multifarious influences. The result is overwhelming in emotion, on the verge of opera. The production has been programmed nearly one hundred times in some forty cities around the world. Fabrizio Cassol's re-orchestration blends influences from jazz, manouche, Mali and the blues, backed up by the trio Aka Moon, and it manages to create a new narrative based on one of music's monuments. This version of the Passion seeks to express the sorrow of a mother, a role that does not exist in the original work, confronted as she is by the sacrifice of her son. From this choice we have a cast of three singers: a soprano for the mother and two very similar voices for the children (an alto/mezzo and a counter-tenor, the young Congolese Serge Kakudji, with his limpid timbre). The role of Christ is doubled here, following an esoteric vision whereby Christ was simultaneously a masculine and a feminine soul. The outcome is a moving experience in which the idea of compassion, pushed to the point of paroxysm that is the sacrifice of oneself, is nonetheless portrayed in a positive light. The ultimate expression of this music, of this Passion, is the love, called upon and shared, that radiates through each scene.

CD x 1

Cypres

2.02.2009

5412217006044