Event

The Soldier's Tale

On January 16th and 17th at the Marigny Opera House, New Resonance Orchestra turns the traditional classical concert on its head with its latest multi-media illumination, Igor Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale.

Written for a chamber orchestra in 1918 in the devastated economy of post-war Europe (sound familiar?), it's the ultimate economic crisis piece. If you've been to a New Resonance show in the past, you know to expect the unexpected. For this production, NRO is teaming up with actors, dancers, and visual artists from the New Orleans-based Night Light Collective. We give you Stravinsky as you've never seen or heard it before.

Enter a bombed-out church. There you encounter Joseph, a young soldier trying to return home from the front. But the devil, with his promise of earthly goods, thwarts our young hero at every turn. The soldier's struggle is accompanied by a hyper-real Russian village band performing Stravinsky's disorienting score: military marches that are out-of-step, 18th-century Lutheran chorales with mangled harmonies, and modernist twists on popular music. Through Joseph's journey, the audience hears how war and economic collapse distorts our sense of home, time, and even three-dimensional reality.