Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” by Gustav Mahler in the Ocher Pavilion of La Rural.

The magic flute –the opera designed by mozart to be represented in a “vaudeville” of the end of the 18th century – is translated in the film of Kenneth Branagh during the First World War, and Rigoletto of Giuseppe Verdi –located in the corrupt courthouse of Mantua- takes the stage at the New York Metropolitan with a set that recreates a Las Vegas hotel-casino. A set of large projections of paintings by Frida Kahlo that of Vincent Van Gogh – pieces designed on canvas and contemplated on the walls of museums – lead the public into one of these experiences today called “immersive”. a text of Louis Pirandello (written for the theater in prose), is adapted with references to the internet and social networks and its representation in the recent Buenos Aires International Festivalthe public sees the theatrical act itself radically modified by “experimenting” a performance through auditory and visual devices typical of virtual reality.

Finally, these days, at a performance of Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Resurrectionof Gustav Mahler -composed to be performed in a conventional symphony hall by more than 120 performers, including musicians, a choir and two soloists- a staging that recreates harrowing scenes related to contemporary crimes is incorporated. In this document, based on the fortuitous discovery of a mass grave, members of UNHCR’s forensic anthropology teams work on this ground, identifying the victims of these murders. Although in its original conception this show was not conceived as an allegory of the crimes of the last Argentine military dictatorship, its inscription as a tribute to forty years of democratic restoration by the leadership of the Colon Theatercrowns this essential political reading with an undeniable local imprint.

There are two performances of “Resurrección” left, this Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7:00 p.m. (Photo: PRENSA TEATRO COLÓN / ARNALDO COLOMBAROLI

But what do all these artistic “experiments” of this period have in common? What do these strategies of premeditated alteration of original works tell us which, in certain cases, in their new typologies, seem to find their place among the various forms of enjoyment of contemporary audiences? How many and what readings can be made from this Resurrection currently on view and who interprets this symphonic monument that Mahler designed between 1888 and 1894?

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The status of a work

The first of these would aim to define the very status of the event, especially since Mahler was a composer who ardently sought to innovate in the possibilities of the symphonic genre after the transformations generated by several of the great composers who preceded him. him. . Indeed, in his nine symphonies, Mahler he made a point of giving each character a marked originality, without however completely “melting down” its limits and, even less, the conventions around its execution or the expectations of the public of the time with regard to them.

On this basis, this Resurrection it can in no way be considered as a performance of Mahler’s symphony within the framework of a conventional concert. It would therefore be a mistake to judge it with the same analytical tools of an interpretation of this type. It is in any case an artistic fact of a completely different nature.

Romeo Castellucci is in charge of the direction, scenography, costumes and lighting of "Resurrection"
Romeo Castellucci is in charge of the direction, scenography, costumes and lighting of “Resurrection”

Resurrection now includes live performance of the work of Mahler under the baton of Charles Dutoit -one of the most eminent current directors-, simultaneously with a staging proposal by the experienced Italian director Romeo Castellucci. We must be fair, in any case, with those who proposed its incorporation into the Colón program: the show does not bear the title of the work of Mahlerbut only its subtitle becomes the very name of this innovative, although perhaps not so effective, artistic event.

However, if perhaps this precision on the statute intends to contribute to the definition of the characteristics of this new artistic artefact, it does not intend to cancel – quite to the contrary – all the readings that it can allow. This range of interpretations goes from the proposal to attach a socio-political perspective to music which was by no means its origin – which has happened several times with this same work under very different political regimes – to the question of whether this proposal ends up or not being faithful to the text chosen by Mahler realize the Resurrection. Downgrading this artistic experience makes it possible to immerse oneself in it, to move away from certain rigidities that traditions tend to impose or even from the sacrosanct traits with which the great creations of Humanity are usually invested.

Once this question has been clarified and faced with this experience with which Colon Theater decided to trample its new season, at least two possible interpretations can be postulated – a more critical one; the other, more condescending, which, we hope, will contribute to the always healthy debate that all artistic manifestations must arouse.

"Resurrection" is presented in the ocher pavilion of the Argentinian Rural Society, in Buenos Aires
“Resurrection” is presented in the Ocher Pavilion of the Argentine Rural Society, in Buenos Aires

A controversial work

One cannot ignore that the artistic event which is represented in countryside – an atypical place for “academic music” – consists of an operation of assembling two creations – the musical and the scenic – conceived at different times. It would be legitimate to wonder to what extent this moving staging, loaded with political connotations and postulated to evoke a crucial process in our contemporary history, added more than a hundred years after the conception of the original, does not call into question the real possibilities of attention, understanding and enjoying a vast, complex and nuanced work, created to become an exclusively musical event. In any case, a possible answer could be found in this “spectacular” matrix which seems to impose itself as an exclusive objective in certain artistic manifestations. In them, their “spectacularity” seems to operate and shape in the public a taste and a way of appreciating art more focused on the immediacy of sensory and emotional experiences, than on the most abstract and typical of the musical fact.

However, in this case, the divorce between what happens on stage in the creation of castellucci and the music of Mahler which emerges from the pit of the orchestra, the soloists and the choir, leaves many doubts as to the effectiveness of this artistic operation even in this aspect. With the aggravating circumstance that all the dissemination strategies typical of the information society and new technologies -through social networks- end up producing another divorce: between the expectations generated and their final approval by the public.

“Open work” in an “open society”

Faced with previous reluctance, however, there is a reading on the meaning of this Resurrection -and also its media reach- which it would be good not to ignore. Reference is made here to the valuation that the emergence of the most diverse readings, interpretations and debates to which this event gives rise has in itself. Such recognition would have at least two important consequences.

On the one hand, this multiplicity of readings confirms the validity of the idea of ​​”open work” formulated by the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco when he affirmed that “…a work of art, a complete and closed form in its perfection as a perfectly calibrated organism, is also open the possibility of being interpreted in a thousand different ways without its non-reproducible singularity being altered.All jouissance is thus an interpretation and an execution, since in all jouissance the work is reborn in an original perspective” (Open work).

Charles Dutoit, guest director of Romeo Castelucci's production (Photo: COLÓN THEATER PRESS / ARNALDO COLOMBAROLI)
Charles Dutoit, guest director of Romeo Castelucci’s production (Photo: COLÓN THEATER PRESS / ARNALDO COLOMBAROLI)

But the recognition of the wealth implied by the free circulation of a multiplicity of perspectives – in the face of the poverty imposed by the alleged interpretative unilinearity of “closed” regimes – can be postulated as an expression of the virtues of “open societies” – at the saying of the philosopher Karl Popper-, condition of both possibility and symptom of mature democracies. Always with Eco: “If over the course of the description (of a work) emerges the conviction that each time that art produces new forms, this new appearance on the cultural scene is never negative and always brings us a new value, so much the better.

If so, then welcome this Resurrection, because it will report – together with the one that Mahler has designed – of so many other resurrections that, despite everything, have occurred in these forty years of democratic validity in Argentina. These forty years that he is Resurrection -let’s not forget- comes to evoke.

* Sociologist (UBA) specializing in cultural issues. PhD student in Human Sciences (UNSAM).

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