‘Les Eaux’, the opening movement of Thomas Adès’ Lieux retrouvés for cello and orchestra (2016), has been choreographed by Jeroen Verbruggen for Amor & Psyche?, a dance piece in rep at TANZ LINZ. Verburggen’s show, which opened on 31 January, is a personal exploration of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, examining Psyche’s search for self-love as a prerequisite for love for another person. Amor & Psyche? debuted at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in 2022. Watch the trailer for here.
The 5-minute work, which appears alongside music by Vaughan Williams, Jimmy Lopez, Gabriel Fauré, and Charles Ives, is performed live by the Bruckner Orchester Linz conducted by Ingmar Beck. ‘Les Eaux’ is one of the four ‘forgotten places’ that make up Lieux retrouvés, originally written as a cello and piano work for Steven Isserlis. Its rippling figuration suggests the calm of still water that gradually muddies and swirls before expanding into a vast, crashing wave. “I don’t know why it is that the cello of all instruments makes one dream of ‘Elsewhere’ when one hears it,” Adès wrote of the piece. “Perhaps because the colours are so rich and wide-ranging, one can dream and find oneself in a different place.”
Adès’ music has been a regular fixture on the dance stages of the world. The Dante Project, a 90-minute ballet in three parts inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, was created with Wayne McGregor and Tacita Dean. It has appeared at the Royal Ballet, the Opéra national de Paris, and the Royal Danish Ballet, as well being released on DVD by Opus Arte and winning a Grammy for the world premiere recording (with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic).
McGregor previously created the dance spectacular for the LA Phil in 2019, where Inferno debuted, which included Outlier – a 2010 work choreographing Adès’ Violin Concerto (2005) for the New York City Ballet. The performance also saw Company Wayne McGregor present a new choreography of Adès’ In Seven Days, partly developed using AI technology, titled Living Archive, and taking its cue from the Creation story that shapes Adès’ 2008 work for piano and orchestra.
Outlier appeared in 2014’s See the Music, Hear the Dance at Sadler’s Wells, alongside stagings of Adès’ music from Crystal Pite, Karole Armitage, and Alexander Whitley. Pite’s Polaris was a predatory, insectoid realisation of the eponymous ‘voyage for orchestra’ (2010); she previously choreographed Robert Lepage’s production of The Tempest for the Metropolitan Opera in 2010. Polaris subsequently appeared at the White Light Festival in 2015.