Calixto Bieito returns

Catalan Calixto Bieito has been a success at the Festival with Peer Gynt (2006), The Abduction from the Seraglio (2007) and Brand (2008) and returns to Bergen for the world premiere of Voices – a Modern Passion. The production is a collaboration with the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen.

– I want to explore the suffering of our own time, a time of extreme egotism where death, old age and pain are all pushed away and denied. We are supposed to become happy consumers, feeling no pain, discomfort or suffering – but is that even possible? asks Bieito, well-known for using the burlesque and powerful to communicate with his audience.

Seven people at the brink of death. One drowning, one beaten to death, and yet another bursting with cancer... In glimpses they reveal bits of memories and thoughts at the terminal stage.

VOICES is heavily based on music and sound and draws on the impact the classic passion has on its audience. Fragments of text and music are woven into a carpet of sounds. All blended with strongly appealing songs of well known artist like Leonard Cohen, PJ Harvey, Coco Rosie and Tom Waits.

Bieito was recently appointed honorary director of the Salamanca Festival, and hopes to be able to feature the production there after Bergen and Copenhagen.