4th - 30th July 2009 - Perpignan ( Map)
Les Estivales 2008
In July 2009, the Estivales, Perpignan summer festival of dance, music and theatre, will celebrate its 22nd anniversary with shows of live music, theatre and dance at the Campo Santo, and « Scènes ouvertes » at the Couvent des Minimes, along with cinema and various other forms of entertainment.
The Estivales began twenty years ago when a group of friends, passionate about theatre in historical surrounding, created « Nuits Estivales » based around a programme of classical theatre and held at the Palais des Rois de Majorque. An immediate success, the festival grew quickly, turning to southern culture for its theme: Mediterranean, Catalan, Spanish, African, gypsy, Middle East, Latin America………… In 1992, Estivales put forward « 1492 Pour tout l’or de Grenade » and in 1993, four productions including the unforgettable « Sud, Voix de Femmes de la Méditerranée », gradually enlarging its fields to include not only theatre but also music, dance, meetings, lectures, and tertulias, (creative activities often providing a forum where people can get together for discussion). The festival moved to new venues, the couvent des Minimes and many other live spots within the department, usually in the open air.
In 1994, the stage of the Campo Santo was opened to the public and since then, July has become the great cultural rendezvous of Perpignan with more than 20.000 faithful followers every year.
Today, the festival retains its Mediterranean flavour and colour as it opens this year with French operatic tenor, Roberto Alagna singing SICILIEN.
For more info
Site: www.estivales.com
Tel: 04 68 35 01 77
Programme
Music
SATURDAY 4th JULY - ROBERTO ALAGNA - SICILIEN
THURSDAY 9th JULY - TOSCA, TRAVIATA, LUCIA - PASSIONS EXTRÊMES
THURSDAY 23rd JULY - JULIEN CLERC -OU S’EN VONT LES AVIONS ?
| Saturday 4th | July Campo Santo | 21h45 |
ROBERTO ALAGNA - SICILIEN
Roberto Alagna
French operatic tenor, Roberto Alagna goes back to his roots to the first language he spoke, as well as the first one in which he sang - Sicilian. "I suddenly felt Sicilian while recording this disc, just like I suddenly felt French while singing La Marseillaise (on Bastille Day of 2005 at the Place de la Concorde). This is the disc of a Sicilian looking for his roots." Based on his recent album, he presents tango, jazz, bossa nova..... a musical portrait of a colourful and constantly changing Sicily, at times radiant, at others heartrending, but always intoxicated with emotion
| Thursday 9th | Campo Santo | 21h45 |
TOSCA, TRAVIATA, LUCIA - PASSIONS EXTRÊMES
Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, Giuseppe Verdi’s Traviata and Lammermoor
de Gaetano’s Lucia are performed the Orchestre Perpignan Méditerranée (director Daniel Tosi) with soloists Burçu UYAR, soprano and Franck FERRARI, baritone.
Burcu Uyar is a young Turk who has perfomed with conductor Daniel Tosi in the past, singing Beethoven’s ‘9th Symphony’ in Marseille Opera, Donizetti’s ‘Maria Stuarda’ (Anna) and Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ (Night Queen).
Nice born Franck Ferrari has given recitals at La Scala of Milan, the Teatro Carlo Fenice in Genova, Opéra de Paris, in Liège, Toulouse, Los Angeles (Hollywood Bowl), the Teatro Regio of Turin, the Berlin Deutsche Oper, in Hambourg, the Metropolitan Opera of New-York and at the Chorégies d’Orange amongst many other great operatic venues around the world, performing roles such as Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Marcello in La Bohème, Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore, Albert in Werther and many more.
Includes choirs of children and adults.
| Thursday 23rd July | Campo Santo | 21h45 |
JULIEN CLERC
OU S’EN VONT LES AVIONS ?
Julien Clerc
Julien clerc, veteran crooner, sings tracks frim his latest album "Où s’en vont les avions" touching on the sensual, the philosophical and the romantic, and featuring songwriters from across the generations, slow-tempo songs followed by faster, snappier numbers.
After a career which has spanned more than 40 years, it is a tribute to him that he continues to celebrate through song the joys of falling in love, passion, women, world events ....... and an occasional hint of Chopin or Beatles influence to remind that he is no spring chicken! Où s’en vont les avions reveals a more intimate side to Clerc, neo-Beatles, neo-Gainsbourg, eighties-style. There is even a track, ’Déranger les pierres’ whose lyrics were written by French First Lady Carla Bruni.
Dance
MONDAY 13th JULY - Cie BLANCA LI - Le Jardin des Délices
FRIDAY 17th & SATURDAY 18th JULY - BALLET PRELJOCAJ
Blanche Neige
SATURDAY 25th JULY - MARIA PAGES
Sevilla
| Monday 13th July | Campo Santo | 21h45 |
Cie BLANCA LI - Le Jardin des Délices
Le Jardin des Délices
Blanca Li is a choreographer, a film director, a dancer and an actress. The Blanca Li Company is made up of six dancers, each with very different backgrounds, but all sharing ’a common taste for happiness and a good sense of humour... ’ Le Jardin des Délices is based around a painting by Hieronymus Bosch - The Garden of Earthly Delights - named after the luscious garden in the central panel, which is filled with cavorting nudes and giant birds and fruit, a world engaged in sinful pleasures. Blanca explains that her intention is to create « a ballet of this sacrilegious painting in which hell mingles with paradise, pleasure with vice, and the satirical with the moral » and to take every risk to present not merely a live picture but beyond this, a phantasmagoria of dancing bodies.
| Friday 17th & Saturday 18th July | Campo Santo | 21h45 |
BALLET PRELJOCAJ
Blanche Neige
Angelin Preljocaj works with 26 dancers of his company to produce Gustav Mahler’s symphony, Snow White, romantic contemporary ballet, based on the Grimm brothers’ version of the fairytale. Costumes have been designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier.
“I was very keen to tell a story, offer something magical and enchanted. No doubt it was to avoid getting stuck in a rut. Also because, like everyone, I love stories. I have remained true to the version by the Brothers Grimm, with just a few personal variations based on my own analysis of the symbols in the tale. Bettelheim describes Snow White as an Oedipus in reverse. The wicked stepmother is the central character in the tale. She is the one whom I examine through her narcissistic determination not to give up on seduction and her role as a woman – a determination which causes her to sacrifice her stepdaughter. Symbols speak equally to adults and children, they’re for everyone, and that’s why I like fairy tales.”
Angelin Preljocaj
| Saturday 25th July | Campo Santo | 21h45 |
MARIA PAGES
Sevilla
Lasting 90 minutes, Pagés’s production Sevilla is a tribute to the magic and mystery of her native city as she returns to the Sevilla of her birth. Famous for her long, expressive arms and her warm, charismatic stage presence, María Pagés, 44, is one of Spain’s leading flamenco dancers. Sevilla is a show about a city, a contemporary flamenco work, a musical...... a mix of rhythm and piercing passion. Maria Pages dances with vigor, her entire body pulsating with rhythm. Various locations, from moonlit plaza to church interior to bullring, are neatly conjured with attractive backdrops and evocative lighting. The music, mostly live, ranges from Shostakovich to the enduring kitsch of Volare.
Supported by 16 well-drilled dancers and six musicians, Pagés is the show’s natural centerpiece.
Theatre
MONDAY 7th JULY - FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER - Don Carlos, Infant
d’Espagne
| Wednesday 22nd July | Campo Santo | 21h45 |
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER - Don Carlos, Infant
d’Espagne
Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. Don Carlos marked Schiller’s entrée into historical drama. Very loosely based on the events surrounding the real Don Carlos of Spain, Schiller’s Don Carlos is another republican figure—he attempts to free Flanders from the despotic grip of his father, King Phillip. The Marquis Posa’s famous speech to the king proclaims Schiller’s belief in personal freedom and democracy.
These are just the main events. There are many more activities, free workshops and concerts organised thoughout this period.
For more detailed info on any of these events, visit the festival web site at: www.estivales.com
or contact
Office de tourisme
place Armand-Lanoux
66000 PERPIGNAN
Tél. 04 68 66 30 30
Fax 04 68 66 30 26
www.little-france.com
A bilingual hostess is available to answer questions and queries on Tel: 04 68 66 33 75 from 13h to 18h evey day apart from week-ends
Scènes Ouvertes
To follow...............................
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