« If by any means my so-called rivals should ever sing the way I sing, should work the way I work, or get sacrificed as much as I get sacrificed, if ever they happened to mean as much to art as much as I do, then I'll think of them as rivals. But you see, I have none. I haven't got a single rival »

Maria Callas

Duetto, an opera designed for Maria Callas and Taenia

«It was a dinner just like any other dinner» Callas swallows up a tapeworm and starts losing weight as she's under the spotlights.The beast was born from swine feces and as it's digested gets trapped within the soggy sheath of the human stomach, dwelling inside the soprano's guts and thrilling to the arias. One body inside another's body, one voice inside another's voice. As Callas and Taenia get on with their monologues, their personality become split and get intertwined as Callas' singing heats up. Their duo turns into a duel. Moresco picked the legend according to which the famous Greek diva underwent a radical transformation and gives the superstar a hard time. Moresco achieved this dark baroque play which is halfway between trivial and lyrical, between muck and glow. Duetto is about a lethal symbiosis, mixing up organic and inorganic, probing into the origins of existence and creation.

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Ariane von Berendt (Maria Callas)

The Ramdam residency: what it's all about

From December 1st to December 17th we'll be in residence at Ramdam, an art center (Lyon) for the first round of the staging. Our actresses, our musician, our stage designer, our dramatic counsellor and our director will meet up and get to grips with this profound play.

The actresses, Ariane von Berendt and Sarah Glond shall play two complex characters that each depend on one another and whose ressemblance is disturbing. Their heated relationship reminds of two rivalrous prima donne, the outcome of which is Callas' unique voice.

Robin Cooke, our stage designer, will start off building the set which will make it possible to achieve some rich chiaroscuro lighting and distorting effects thanks to the use of lenses.

Pierre-Yves Macé, our musician and composer, will have to gear his technique to Callas' singing.

Paolo Bellomo will be hunting out the necessary texts, pictures and characters which will perk up the whole team.

Paolo Taccardo, our director, will orchestrate the whole thing, setting out to stage a complex piece of work, with that risk-taking child spirit Duetto inspires him. This will be a way to start the ball rolling and physically and emotionally tackle Moresco's writing so that it takes shape.

This is all about getting everything ready so that we can actually show our work on December 16th at 8 p.m. We're banking on programme planners and theatre directors attending the show and willing to produce us and help us make this show come real.

We need your support !

(Please click on "CC" button to show the subtitles!)

Note

The play was translated by the translation group called "La langue du bourricot"(which translates as "The Donkey's tongue") coordinated by Céline Frigau Manning between the Paris University (Paris 8) and the Théâtre de la Colline.

The text was published in 2016 at the Presses Universitaires du Midi (South France University Press) in Toulouse.

The compagnie Nostos

Nostos - from greek νόστος - harks back to Ulysses' long journey back to Ithaca. For us, going back home is a way of creating our identity .Nostos is a theatre company which was founded in Paris in 2014 by Italian stage director Paolo Taccardo and translator Paolo Bellomo. Round them orbit actors, stage designers, musicians, dancers, video-makers, all of them having different experiences and trainings, coming from different countries.

Our artists / Compagnie Nostos

Like Barbara, Ariane von Berendt could say: "I don't remember the moment I started singing". But she does more than singing. She plays accordion and works as an actress! After studying acting at ENSATT, she played at the Mousson d'été Festival and in Meurtre de la princesse juive directed by Michel Didym.

Very early Sarah Glond plays as an acrobat, then she practices contemporary dance and studies acting at Ecole Supérieure d’Art Dramatique in Paris. She works with several street theatre companies, acts both in movies and plays by a vast array of authors, from Molière to Viripaev.

Paolo Taccardo is a theatre director and translator. He enjoys analysis - both movement and text analysis. He's always seeking to create dynamic spaces, impacting images and thoughts, led by imagination and space. He studied acting in Milan and dance in Paris and worked mostly as an assistant director at Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Teatro Due in Parma, Teatro Stabile in Bolzano, Teatro Eliseo in Rome, NapoliTeatroFestivalItalia. Then he founded Nostos in Paris in 2015 to concentrate his efforts in his own creations. He lives in Lyon.

Pierre-Yves Macé composes music for the stage (concerts, theather, danse) or records (Tzadik, Sub Rosa, Brocoli labels) from different sources : classic instruments, computers, record player, children choirs, amateur singing on YouTube, urban noises… He lives and works in Paris.

Paolo Bellomo is a translator, a dramaturg and is currently writing his PhD thesis in comparative literature. In his life and work he loves to disturb the languages he speaks and writes through several stratagems.

Born in Paris, Robin Cooke studied applied arts at Estienne School and ENSAAMA Olivier de Serres where he worked on sculpture with Jean-Louis Sauvat and Jean Letourneur. Then he studied stage design at ENSATT during three years, and worked with Séverine Chavrier, Gwenaël Morin, Alain Fronton, Louise Vignaud.

To see more about Nostos: www.compagnienostos.com

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The Callas (Ariane von Berendt) and her director (Paolo Taccardo) Paris, 2016

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The Callas (Ariane von Berendt) and her dramaturg (Paolo Bellomo), Paris, 2016

Antonio Moresco, author of sensorialities

Antonio Moresco was born in Mantua and chose Milan as his adopted town. He's been one of the major Italian writers over the past decades. He was taught in a seminary and was a left wing extraparliamentary militant during the Years of Lead. Antonio Moresco's writing often depicts unsettling atmospheres that we can't easily give clear-cut explanations to. Moresco swaps psychology, philosophy and ideology for his own idiosyncratic way of naming things and feeling things. His style is somewhere between lyricism and narrative, mixing up action and insanity. He's a fierce kind of a writer and one of those who can't be classified. He wrote a trilogy novel, I Giochhi dell' eternità, made up of Gli esordi (1998), Canti del caos (2001-2003), and Gli increati (2015). He wrote six plays, La santa, (2000), five of which were collected in Merda e luce (2007). Duo (Duetto) is his first French-translated play.

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Ramdam art center

Ramdam is an art centre bustling with activity, not only does it host numerous art projects that only just begin, but it also functions as a stage for Maguy Marin's (famous French dancer) dancing troupe to experience new shows. Maguy Marin meant RAMDAM to be creation centre that is likely to stimulate art exchanges among performers and buzz with new theatrical ideas, whether concrete, sound, intellectual or only words.

RAMDAM is hosting artists from all backgrounds and all countries, giving them an opportunity to get down to work in peace and quiet, offering some space and some time for them to try out ideas and helping them find venues for their show, not to mention that RAMDAM's the perfect place for artists to confront each other's work. As far as art promoting is concerned, RAMDAM is also meant to network with other theatre partners in France and abroad, no matter what the distance is, exchange being a key value.

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Ramdam's website

Duetto, opéra pour Callas et ver solitaire

The publications