At Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival this week, Haydn’s Creation “will not be the sort of concert you’ll want to enjoy with your eyes closed,” writes Roslyn Sulcas in Thursday’s (7/19) New York Times. France’s Laurence Equilbey will conduct her period-instrument Insula Orchestra and Accentus choir, with staging by Carlus Padrissa, “of the Barcelona-based theater troupe La Fura dels Baus…. It features a 30-foot crane, huge helium-filled balloons, singers submerged in an aquarium, and a chorus dressed in rags and holding iPads. The production is proof of Ms. Equilbey’s stubbornly individual approach to leading her orchestra, the resident ensemble at [Paris’s] La Seine Musicale…. She has made a name for herself by tenaciously embarking on unusual projects like The Creation … and programming neglected repertoire, particularly the work of female composers…. Ms. Equilbey grew up in Paris and Germany…. Nikolaus Harnoncourt … inspired her love of the sound of period instruments…. In 1991, she created Accentus…. The Creation was her opening salvo at La Seine Musicale’s inaugural concert in April.… ‘Haydn begins with the concept of a black hole, compression—and then light, explosion,’ Mr. Padrissa said…. ‘At first there is chaos and obscurity, then light.’ ”
Posted July 20, 2018
In photo: a scene from the Haydn Creation being performed by the Insula Orchestra at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York on July 19 and 20.
