The Soldier’s Tale

Igor Strawinsky wrote The Soldier’s Tale together with the Swiss writer Ferdinand Ramuz in 1918. Both authors thought about a show divided in two acts and seven scenes.

In Kuraia and Alauda theatre staging, Strawinsky’s work has been framed by a prologue and an epilogue, made up by two musical pieces that accompany two theatrical actions, with the intention of allowing the audience to come in, to place themselves in front of the show and to leave it in an organic and natural way.

Another interesting element that makes this event unique is the production of the stage place using a puppet theatre. The idea has arisen after a careful study of Ramuz’s text and Strawisky’s music.

Both authors, moving away from the late romantic and decadent rhetoric and grandiloquence of those years, reduce to the essential their respective languages. Stripped from any superfluous element, word and music acquire the hardness and brilliance of a diamond. The Soldier’s Tale proposes the aesthetic of disincarnation. Therefore it is extraordinarily congenial to the puppet theatre, capable of transforming the parsimony of its resources into expressive richness.

Puppets here are conceived as a visual support to reinforce the hardness and nakedness of Strawinsky’s music sonorities.

Due to all these features, this event production has arisen interest among different cultural fields. The show has been programmed for Bilbao’s Puppets Festival 24th edition (Ayala Theatre, Bilbao), for Klem-Kuraia Festival (Leioa Kultur etxea) and for Reinosa and Burgos main theatres.
Owing to its characteristics, this is an event suitable for a wide range of publics: families, adults, children, specialists and music amateurs…

Schedule

Actors: Miren Gaztañaga, Luis Melendo, Rafael Benito

Musical performance: Ensemble Kuraia

Puppets: Rafael Benito

Scenery: Alauda Teatro

Costumes and attrezzo: Alauda Teatro

Lighting Mimar, S.L.

Choreography: Miren Gaztañaga

Production: Alondra Producciones S.L., Kuraia.

Musical conducto: Andrea Cazzaniga

Stage director: Rafael Benito

Approximate duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes. The show will not have a break.