MORGEN;

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Music: Pedro Alcalde
Choreographer: Nacho Duato
Set, Costumes: Nacho Duato
Lighting: Nicolás Fischtel (A.A.I.)

Premiered by the Compañía Nacional de Danza (CND)
Venue: Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria Santander
Date: 25th February 2022

BACKGROUND
The initial idea was to build a ballet on Dorothy Parker’s 1926 poem entitled Resumé. The poem consists of 8 short verses. The first 7 refer to the drawbacks of 7 different ways of committing suicide and the eighth and last suggests that another option could be to live.

TITLE
Morgen (“tomorrow” in German) is the title of a song by Richard Strauss (op. 27, nr. 4) with which the ballet concludes, both for its intrinsic beauty, as for the content of hope from its text. The semicolon refers to the tattoo and subsequent project to help people who have survived a suicide attempt. projectsemicolon.com: “A semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence but chose not to. The author is you, and the sentence is your life.”

MUSIC
During the composition process, the different sections dedicated to the first seven verses of the poem moved away, abstracting from the order established by the verses, in order to attend directly to the atmosphere, they epitomize. The minor second and descending chromatic fourth intervals, the emblematic elements of the baroque “doctrine of the affections” to represent lament, mourning and death, appear in each of the different sections. The use of different forms of ostinati has the function of producing a sensation of processional movement, in the manner of a peculiar musical exequies.

SOUND PALETTE
The music of the entire work is performed exclusively by an instrumental sextet and a non-singing voice, without added sounds or electroacoustic elaborations. The frequent use of extended techniques of instrumental execution produces on many occasions a strangeness with respect to the instrument that executes them.
Clarinet: Joan Enric Lluna
Cello: Erica Wise
Percussion: “Percussions de Barcelona”: Robert Armengol, Miquel Vich, Núria Andorrà, Riccardo Massari Spiritini (Tarcordium)
Voice: Molly Malcolm
Musical recording and mastering: Ferran Conangla, Sergio Sotelo

MEDIUM
CD

DURATION
35‘

PERFORMANCES
25-02-2022 Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria, Santander Spain 1
29-09-2022 Auditorio Fórum Evolución Burgos Spain 1
03-10-2022 Teatro Real Madrid Spain 4
19-10-2022 Bonn Opera Haus Bonn Germany 2
23-10-2022 Theater im Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen Germany 1
03-02-2023 Teatro Mayor Bogotá Colombia 3
10-02-2023 Auditorio del Sodre Montevideo Uruguay 3
31-03-2023 Teatro Calderón Valladolid Spain 3
28-04-2023 Teatro Circo Albacete Spain 2
07-11-2023 Naves del Español Madrid Spain 6
24-02-2024 Forum am Schlosspark Ludwigsburg Germany 2
Total performances 28