Film & Music:   Lebenslicht (Austrian premiere)

Philippe Herreweghe breaks new ground with his Lebenslicht project. He asks himself how modern visual worlds can be combined with Baroque music without sacrificing their specific qualities. He wants to know how to let the music speak “our language” and whether this is necessary to express things that we can understand before we even reflect on them: things we can see. He conducts the experiment with the help of a cinematic narrative covering three generations – a grandfather and his son and grandson: a family with its problems of guilt, anger and reproaches, a family through which the universal themes of Bach’s music, from fear and death to forgiveness, consolation and joy, enter into our own everyday lives. In combination with the powerful images, a new poetic world of understanding, acceptance and comfort emerges in response to the everyday human tragedy. In Clara Pons’ film we observe these three men, who are all the sons of their fathers: the old man who has reached the end of his life, his son carried away by the whirlpool of life, and his son still at the start of life.

Dorothee Mields – soprano
Alex Potter – alto
Thomas Hobbs – tenor
Peter Kooij – bass
Choir and orchestra of Collegium Vocale Gent
Conductor: Philippe Herreweghe