Concert : Talea Ensemble - FAMA

Concert featuring Talea Ensemble, actress Bo Change, Tara O\Connor on contrabass flute, and vocal ensemble Ekmeles. Music by Beat Furrer: FAMA (2005) - US Premiere.

FAMA (2004-2005)

Aural theater in eight scenes for large ensemble, eight-part (SSAATTBB) and actress

Texts: Arthur Schnitzler, Lucretious, Carlo Emilio Gadda

Program Note:

A young woman before a mirror “Am I really so beautiful? Is that me there who speaks?” She experiences herself though the projections of the society around her, reflects in the image of others. Her nakedness shows her exposed, defenseless, an object of desire. An obsessive view from without: she has not yet found herself, remains a stranger to who she is. In Schnitzler’s novel, Frulein Else which appears as the basic narrative layer is sent out into the fine world of a glitzy Italian hotel in the Dolomites. Else has a hopeless, demure sense of the direction in which this society is leading her, a society whose women are kept on the end of leads attached to pearl collars. “When I marry, I will most probably do it cheaper” marriage is another form of prostitution. Her mother’s beseeching letters pressure her: Else must find money to support her debt-ridden father, first thirty and then fifty thousand guilders. The sponsor’s price is high and leads Else to a world of self-destruction, a further “victim on the altar of a world of total reification” (Furrer).

The U.S. Premiere of FAMA:

The box theatre no longer exists since its last presentation in 2006. However, Beat Furrer and Talea are collaborating to present FAMA in an un-staged concert version. They will be joined in two concerts presented at the Bohemian National Hall by New York-based vocal ensemble, Ekmeles, and actress/singer, Bo Chang.

Bo Chang, actress

Tara O’Connor, contrabass flute

Ekmeles vocal ensemble

James Baker, conductor

Presented by the Austrian Cultural Forum and Czech Center New York.

Generously funded by ProHelvetia Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung and the Harry and Alice Eiler Foundation.