Théâtre National de Bretagne
Direction Arthur Nauzyciel
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Time 50 min
Created in TNB - 2018
Tour seasons 2019/20 and 2020/21
Generally staged for a younger audience, Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals is a suite of musical movements, at once humorous, rich, playful, and teeming with imagery. TNB’s associate artist, Albin de la Simone, has revisited the French romantic composer’s emblematic work and created a stage show for a youthful audience. He has re-orchestrated the work for a superb quartet: a pianist, a cellist, an electric guitarist (and banjoist), and a mezzo-soprano singer (also percussionist).
And because The Carnival of the Animals is a score without a text – a suite of musical movements without a story – Albin de la Simone invited the author and plastic artist, Valérie Mréjen, another TNB associate artist, to provide a storyline with characters and dialogue for his first creation at the TNB. Together Albin de la Simone and Valérie Mréjen present a wildly amusing story of a massive outbreak of animals fused with the ordered, but somewhat random investigation led by an enigmatic woman and some far-fetched musicians, who function as much mediums as so-called detectives. The story will appeal to the imaginations of the young and not so young alike. At the same time it will plunge them into Saint-Saëns’ captivating musical composition, freely adapted by Albin de la Simone for the show.
The Carnival of the Animals was created at the Théâtre National de Bretagne in December 2018, after which it will go on tour.
Time 50 min
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THE CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALSOriginal music
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
Musical adaptation
ALBIN DE LA SIMONE
Dramaturgy
ALBIN DE LA SIMONE
VALÉRIE MRÉJEN
Texts
VALÉRIE MRÉJEN
Set
VIRIGINIA MIRA
Construction
LAURENT BODIN
ARNAUD QUINSON
Lights
GILLES GENTNER
Costumes
MYRIAM RAULT
with ARMELLE BLARY, LINAËLLE GALIPOT
Choreographic view
LATIFA LAÂBISSI
Editing, animation
JULIE OBADIA
from children's drawings, made during Le Printemps du Petit TNB (The Spring of the Small TNB), 2018
Voice
MANUELA GOURARY
LAURENT POITRENAUX
Sound
YOLANDE DECARSIN
Stage manager / Sound
YOHANN GABILLARD
Lights manager
MATHIEU HAMEAU
Video manager
JULIE PAREAU
Set manager
Félix LHOMANN
With
VADIM SHER piano
ALVARO BELLO guitar
CORINNE LACOUR cello
LORRAINE TISSERANT mezzo-soprano
JOCELYNE DESVERCHÈRE actress
Show created at Théâtre National de Bretagne.
Production : Théâtre National de Bretagne.
With the support of La Cité de la Musique – Philharmonie de Paris et La Villette, Paris.
Thanks to Jeanine Roze and le Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Mikaël Barre, Sophie Lifshitz and the team of TNB.