- 23.05.2023, 7.30 pmas part of International May Festival, Wiesbaden (9 € – 48 €)
For the legendary torero Juan Belmonte, bullfighting was a spiritual, ritualistic exercise. Upright, almost motionless, he fought dangerously close to the bull’s body. Suffering from lung cancer, Belmonte, the greatest matador of his time, took his own life in 1962. In her new work, Spanish author, director and performance artist Angélica Liddell unites Belmonte’s search for tragic beauty and sanctity with Richard Wagner’s tragic consummation of love in death, as he expressed it in “Tristan und Isolde.” In her production of “Liebestod,” Liddell evokes the figures of the bull and the bullfighter and is reflected in both. Simultaneously lover and beloved, she confronts her own abysses, her raging passion and yearning for death, offending her audience and the contemporary cultural chic, which, Liddell argues, has lost its connection to myth and transcendence. In the middle of a stage world that resembles a Spanish bullring, Angélica Liddell screams, stutters, whispers and sings her lyrics about love and death as if in a final rite of summons that takes her to the origins of her theater.
Duration: approx. 120 Min.
Language: Spanish
MT Co-Production
Trigger warning: The performance contains explicit depictions of autoaggressive violence.
Cast & Credits
Mit Angélica Liddell, Gumersindo Puche, Patrice Le Rouzic, Palestina de los Reyes u. a. Text, Regie, Bühnen- und Kostümgestaltung: Angélica Liddell
Licht: Mark Van Denesse
Kostüm: Justo Algaba
Regieassistenz: Borja Lopez, Nicolas Guy Michel Chevallier
Ton: Antonio Navarra Vero
Licht: Tirso lzuzquiza Ibanez de Aldecoa
Bühne: Chris Vanneste, Dennis Diels, Eddy Deschepper, Joris Durnez, Laurent Ysebaert, Luc Laroy, RafWillems, Sander Michiels Bühnen- und Kostümwerkstätten Ateliers NTGent Produktionsleitung: Gumersindo Puche (Atra Bilis)
Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit: Saité Ye, Génica Montalbano (Atra Bilis)
Produktion: NTGent, Atra Bilis
Koproduktion: Festival d’Avignon, Tandem Scène Nationale Arras-Douai, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm
Gefördert im Rahmen des Bündnisses internationaler Produktionshäuser von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien. Dieses Programm/Projekt/Publikation wird unterstützt durch die Generaldirektorin für Bücher und Leseförderung (Spanisches Ministerium für Kultur und Sport) sowie durch einen Zuschuss durch die Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), einer staatlichen Agentur, im Rahmen von SPANIEN – Sprühende Kreativität. Ehrengast der Frankfurter Buchmesse 2022
Biography
Angélica Liddell
Angélica Liddell is one of the most influential and important figures in Spanish performance theater as a writer, director and performance artist. In 1993 she founded the Atra Bilis Teatro, where she has premiered over twenty-five of her works. Among her numerous awards were the Casa de América Award for Innovative Drama in 2003 for her play Nubila Wahlheim; the SGAE Theatre Award in 2004 for Mi relación con la comida; the Premio Ojo Crítico Segundo Milenio Award in 2005 in recognition of her body of work; and the Notodo del Público Award for Best Performance in 2007 for her play Perro muerto en tintorería: los fuertes. The play El año de Ricardo won the Valle Inclán Award in 2008. Liddell was also awarded the Sebastiá Gasch Prize in 2011. Her most recent works, El año de Ricardo, La casa de la fuerza, Maldito sea el hombre que confía en el hombre and Todo el cielo sobre la tierra (El síndrome de Wendy), Qué haré yo con esta espada, The Scarlet Letter and Liebestod have premiered at the Festival d’Avignon, the Wiener Festwochen or the Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris. In 2012 she received the National Prize for Theater Literature, awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, for La casa de la fuerza, and in 2013 the Silver Lion of the Biennale di Venezia. In 2017 Angélica Liddell was awarded the Order Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.