7 tableux en musique

Thursday, February 11 and Friday, February 12

Conceived, written and directed by Sarah Rothenberg
Lighting design: Jennifer Tipton
Scenic and costume design: Marina Draghici
Projection design:  Hannah Wasileski
Sound design: Bart Fasbender

Cast:
Narrator: Henry Stram
Celeste/Francoise: Nancy Hume
Tenor: Nicholas Phan
Violinist: Boson Mo
Pianist: Sarah Rothenberg
String quartet: Jackson Guillen, violin; Jae-Won Bang, violin; Jill Valentine, viola; Sonya Matoussova, cello

Works of Fauré, Debussy, Chopin, Ravel, Leon Delafosse, Reynaldo Hahn and Beethoven. Texts from Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and Celeste Albaret's memoir, Monsieur Proust
Enter the creative world of Marcel Proust’s literary masterpiece and the music, paintings and people that inspired it.

Sarah Rothenberg's A Proust Sonata is inspired by Marcel Proust's early 20th century masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, and the author's final reclusive years when he withdrew from French society to complete his seven volume magnum opus.  Rothenberg interweaves text, music and image, evoking the fashionable world of belle epoque salons, Proust's brilliant insights on art and music, and the connection between memory and the passage of time captured so eloquently in Proust's great work .

Celebrated OBIE-Award winning actor Henry Stram, as the Narrator, brings Proust's prose to life on stage. Solo piano works, French art song, and Fauré's sonata for violin and piano are performed within seven tableaux based on sections of the great novel.  The abstract set, designed by Marina Draghici, creates multiple surfaces for projections created from paintings, photography and Proust's manuscripts in this multimedia, interdisciplinary performance.

A concert of text, a theatrical presentation of music, A Proust Sonata merges art forms in order to illuminate a central theme of Proust's novel - how art can triumph over time.

“A remarkably thoughtful program of music that inspired Proust…the whole evening radiated uncommon care and intelligence.” - The New York Times on Marcel Proust’s Paris

“The tenor Nicholas Phan, with his sweet, clear voice, is on a career roll” - The New York Times