Patron's Circle
On his journey home, a tired and penniless soldier meets the Devil who makes a deal with him: his violin in exchange for a magical book. But first, he must teach the Devil how to play the violin. The soldier then follows him home and spends three enjoyable days there. When he returns to his village, no one recognizes him: three years, and not three days, have gone by! Fortunately… or unfortunately, there is the book…
Text by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947)
First performed at the Théâtre Municipal of Lausanne, September 28th, 1918
Editions Chester Music, represented by Sikorski
English bio
Àlex Ollé is one of the six artistic directors of La Fura dels Baus, a theatrical group characterised from its beginnings in 1979 for its desire to interact with the audience and getting them involved in the show’s development. Active in theatre, opera and large-scale shows, he has worked with Carlus Padrissa on numerous productions, including Mediterrani mar olímpic for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, La navaja en el ojo for the Valence biennale in 2001, L’Atlántida by Manuel de Falla, La damnation de Faust, Die Zauberflöte, Journal d’un disparu, XXX (a play based on La philosophie dans le boudoir), and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. Together they also co-directed the film Faust 5.0, awarded with a Méliès d’Or in 2003.
He directed Un ballo in maschera, his first Verdi opera, at the Sydney Opera, for which he was awarded the Helpmann Award in 2013. He has been a guest director at the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Liceu in Barcelona, La Monnaie, the Opéra Garnier, la Scala, the Semperoper Dresden, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Teatro Regio in Turin, and the Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Lyon operas, where he recently directed Norma, La bohème, Alceste, Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher and La damoiselle élue.
Lluc Castells is an illustrator by profession and has worked as a set and costume designer for the performing arts. He mainly developed his work in theatre in Barcelona, working with directors like Xavier Alberti, Julio Manrique, Lluis Homar and Norbert Martinez. He also took part in productions like Temps salvatge by Josep Maria Miró, Vida privada by Josep Maria de Segarra and El bordell by Lluísa Cunillé, and in more classical plays like Cyrano de Bergerac, Richard III and La Cerisaie.
In 2006, he made his debut in film as the artistic director for the feature film 53 días de inviernoby Judith Colell. For opera, he designed the set and costumes of Così fan tutte, Don Pasquale, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Little Sweep, Brundibárand Anna Bolena. Since 2009, he has worked with Àlex Ollé de La Fura dels Baus and designed the costumes for the Grand Macabreby Ligeti presented at La Monnaie in Bruxelles, at the Liceu in Barcelona and at the English National Opera, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonnyat the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Bolshoï in Moscow and the Megaron Athens, Madama Butterflyat the Sydney Opera, as well as Un ballo in maschera, Pelléas et Mélisande, Normaand Jeanne D’arc, in the most well-known theatres in Europe.
Current projects: Mefistofele in Lyon and Stuttgart, Edipe by Enescu in Amsterdam, Turandotin Tokyo and Quartett by Francesconi at La Scala.
Valentina Carrasco studied music, dance and litterature. She started her career in Paris where she worked in film, before joing La Fura dels Baus in 2000. With La Fura dels Baus, she has developed big events: the Barcelona Forum 2004, the Beiteddine Festival in Beyrouth, Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the opening ceremony of the Contemporary Art Biennial in Valence. She also co-authored and directed actors in the play XXX.
For opera, she was involved in staging D.Q. Don Quijote en Barcelona at the Liceu in Barcelona, she co-directed Auf den Marmorklippen, world premiere at the National Theatre in Mannheim. She was involved in staging Die Zauberflöteat the Ruhrtriennale, directed singers in Le Château de Barbe-Bleueand Journal d’un disparuat the Opéra de Paris, Das Reingoldand Die Walküreat the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; she staged Michaels Reise um die Erdewith Carlus Padrissa (Vienna Festival, Autumn Festival; Venise Biennial), helped direct Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonnyat the Teatro Real in Madrid, directed singers in Quartettat la Scala in Milan, worked with Àlex Ollé to stage Tristan und Isolde at the Opéra de Lyon, Le Grand Macabrein Bruxelles, Rome, Buenos Aires and Adelaide and Œdipein Bruxelles and Buenos Aires.
Apart from La Fura dels Baus, she choreographed La Strada, staged Michaels Reise um die Erdeat the Autumn Festival in Warsaw, The Turn of the Screw in Lyon, La bella addormentata nel boscoin Strasbourg.
Director and set designer, Ramon Simó taught directing and performance at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona where he directed the Centre for Research, Documentation and Broadcasting for three years. He was the artistic director for La Fira de Teatre in Tàrrega from 1996 to 1998, member of the Artistic Advisory for the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya from 1999 to 2006, then artistic director of the GREC Festival in Barcelona from 2012 to 2016. He has directed and designed sets for the Centre Dramàtic de la Generalitat, the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, the Teatre Lliure, the Sala Beckett du Teatro Fronterizo and for La Fura dels Baus, Zotal, Sémola Teatre and Comediants. He has also been involved in productions in Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Russia.
He is also an actor and performer, and has presented five musical shows with the Lisboa Zentral Café quintet and recently created No more Shakespeare, currently on tour. He has published several essays on theatre as well as articles in specialized periodicals, he has adapted literary works for the theatre and edited several others, including the Catalan version of Théâtre Completby Beckett.
Júlia Canosa i Serra studied theatre and dramaturgy in Barcelona, London and Dublin. After working several years in theatre, she had her first opera experience at the Opera Theatre Company of Dublin for the premiere of The Wall of Cloud by Raymond Deane. She wrote several projects based on literary texts with Irish composer Benjamin Dwyer, like poems by Federico García Lorca for example. She has been working with theatrical companies in Spain, Italy and France since 2007, mainly as a playwright and assistant director. She also writes for television, advertisement and think tanks. She has been writing for opera for the last several years, working with Àlex Ollé for example.
She recently wrote the libretto for the opera Frankensteinby Mark Grey, presented at La Monnaie. She is currently writing a new libretto for this composer for a production that will be presented in the USA in 2019.
Principal clarinettist of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Davide Bandieri was taught by Dario Goracci at the Istituto Superiore di studi musicali Pietro Mascagni in Livorno from which he graduated in 1997. He completed his education with Fabrizio Meloni and Karl Heinz Steffens, then on the Mythos course at the Fondazione Arturo Toscanini with Alessandro Carbonare. In 2002, he won first prize at the triennial chamber music competition at the International Piano Academy ‘Incontri col Maestro’ in Imola. From 2004 to 2011, he played solo E-flat clarinet with the Orquesta Sinfônica de Madrid. Since 2012, he has been first solo clarinet with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and first clarinet with the Camerata Strumentale orchestra in Prato (Tuscany). He has worked with numerous orchestras and prestigious conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Harding, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Kent Nagano, Gianluigi Gelmetti and Bruno Bartoletti. He is also very active in the creation of contemporary music.
The central theme of professional photographer Emmanuel Carlier’s work is the relationship between image and time. In 1989, he presented a monumental video sculpture at the Grand Palais in Paris called Le Temps désanamorphosé. In 1992, he developed an original process called Temps Mort (Dead Calm) which makes it possible to move through space without moving through time. This process has now been used multiple times in films (the movie Matrix). Since 1995, Emmanuel Carlier has exhibited video installations in France and abroad; the Contemporary art Biennial in Lyon, the Montreal Biennial, the Kwangju Biennial, exhibits in Rio, Berlin, Geneva, the Museum of Contemporary art in Shanghai – Power station of Art.
Emmanuel Carlier has worked with La Fura dels Baus since 1993 to create videos for performances – MTM–, plays – Fausto, Metamorfosis, XXX–, symphonies – Trilogia romana, Alma Brasileiraat the Theatro municipal in Sao Paulo – and operas – D.Q. Don Quijote en Barcelona, Le Château de Barbe-Bleue, Un ballo in mascheraand Erwartung.
Elena Gui studied literature and theatre at the La Sapienza University, then at Paris VIII, focusing in particular on the theatrical work of Pier Paolo Pasolini and on the texts of Antonin Artaud. She has worked as an assistant director and production assistant for theatre and experimental film making. In 2009, she took part in an artistic residency at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center which culminated in a performance of Girl Machine, presented in New York at the Performa Festival. Since 2013, she has specialized in stage lighting and worked as an assistant for lighting technicians Urs Schönebaum and Fabiana Piccioli. With the latter, she took part in dance shows Harbor me, Qutband Fall by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and in play Cantique des Cantiques by Abou Lagraa and Mickaël Serre, presented at the Maison de la Danse in Lyon. For the 2016 edition of the Festival d’Avignon, she worked with Urs Schönebaum for the lighting design for Babel by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damian Jalet.
She recently worked with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damian Jalet and Marina Abramovic for the opéra Pélleas et Mélisande.
Josep Sanou studied piano and harmony at the Barcelona Conservatory, and drawing and painting with Gonzalo Beltran. He started off his career as a pianist and musical arranger, working with different Spanish artists. In 1986, he founded Gringos, a group pioneering in the mixture of musical genres and the use of video projections. They recorded three albums together and won numerous awards. He also wrote soundtracks for film, theatre and dance, leading him to work with well-known people, like Àlex Ollé. He wrote the music for the film Fausto 5.0, the plays Metamorphosisand Boris Godounov, dance shows Jinete de peces, La Japonesa o la imposible llegada a Dédaloand Der Dämon. He also wrote jingles for many TV channels and big companies like Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Iberia.