Charlotte Rampling and Sonia Wieder-Atherton open the 2023 cultural season in a poetical dialogue combining Shakespeare’s verses and Bach’s suites. A clever mix where the voice of Charlotte Rampling echoes the cello of Sonia Wieder-Atherton.

Program:
Shakespeare & Bach

Charlotte Rampling and Sonia Wieder-Atherton open the 2023 cultural season in a poetical dialogue combining Shakespeare’s verses and Bach’s suites. A clever mix where the voice of Charlotte Rampling echoes the cello of Sonia Wieder-Atherton.

The idea to incorporate Bach’s timeless pieces – The Cello Suites – and Shakespeare’s Sonnets came as an intuition to Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Charlotte Rampling. Its realization became an evidence. Over time, their research, their work in tandem sketched the lines and links between these two sacred monsters. The texts from one, led by the solemn voice of Charlotte, the notes of the other, sculpted by Sonia’s cello.

Shakespeare’s sonnets emerge on the eternal topics of time, life, death, love or jealousy, in a kaleidoscope of thoughts and memories. The notes of Bach intervene at a regular interval, to guide the storyteller in her travel through a distorted space and time, anchored in the present, and to keep her alive.

In a minimalist staging, Sonia and her cello operate stage right while Charlotte Rampling walks alone on stage until she fades behind the poet’s works. A lyrical journey between sounds, images, and faces, like fragments of previous or upcoming lives.