the ttn team recommends…
Viktoria Mullova and her ensemble journey through music, poetry and dance in an immersive show at the Barbican.
A magical atmosphere created through lighting and set design opens the first part of the programme, which is brought to life by Joshua Junker’s choreography as danced by Ching-Ying Chien.
Punctuated by Jasmine Morris’s electronic music using samples of Verklärte Nacht and by verses of the Richard Dehmel poem that inspired Schoenberg projected behind the stage, the Mullova Ensemble plays music that anticipates the themes of Schoenberg’s work. Alongside moments of improvisation, the ensemble moves from moonlit forests to romantic declarations, foreshadowing the passion of a story in which despair is vanquished by love. Then, suddenly, all special effects vanish, focussing attention on the intense beauty of Verklärte Nacht.
