Roger Waters apresenta ópera no Brasil

Roger Waters apresenta ópera no Brasil



Artista define 'Ça Ira' como obra sobre a liberdade; diretor usa Bispo do Rosário como referência para cenários
29 de abril de 2013

A escala épica em que Roger Waters costuma trabalhar faz de sua ópera Ça Ira - Há Esperança, um trabalho coerente. Que o diga os que assistiram à epopeia audiovisual The Wall, um clássico atestado do eficaz populismo artístico que Waters pratica como poucos, remontado no Morumbi, em 2012. Antecessor de Ça Ira, The Wall trouxe questões complexas sobre direitos humanos e a liberdade do indivíduo, resumidas ao espetáculo pop, falando às vísceras através do colossal. Coloque-a em um teatro, substitua as guitarras por violinos, adicione árias, e o resultado não será distante da ópera sobre a revolução francesa que Waters estreia no Teatro Municipal, por quatro noites, a partir desta quinta-feira.

"O mote é a liberdade", explica o ex-integrante do Pink Floyd em entrevista coletiva. "A revolução francesa derrubou a ideia de que o poder está nas mãos de poucos, mas ainda não somos livres. Chegou a hora de nos desfazermos do extremismo religioso, de abolirmos estados controladores", completa, após frisar que Ça Ira não é uma ópera-rock, e sim um espetáculo construído nos moldes da tradição erudita.

A música foi composta nos anos 80, a partir de um libreto do letrista e roteirista francês Étienne Roda-Gil e de sua mulher Nadine, mas o trabalho foi engavetado após a morte de Nadine. Ganhou os palcos apenas em 2005 (passou por Manaus, em 2008), e chega reformulado a São Paulo, com música nova e um cenário contemporâneo, desenvolvido por André Heller-Lopes. A montagem tem referências na vida do artista Arthur Bispo do Rosário, e usa elementos de seu confinamento a um manicômio para discutir sanidade e liberdade.


A música, no entanto, bebe em Brahms, Beethoven e Puccini, inspirações um tanto conservadoras para um herói do rock progressivo, mestre da psicodelia calculada, coautor de verdadeiras sinfonias modernas como Dark Side of the Moon e The Wall (esta última quase inteiramente sua).

"Busquei no meu coração melodias e estruturas fáceis de compreender. A música erudita do século 20 é por vezes demasiadamente cerebral. Quis trabalhar no idioma de Berlioz, de Puccini", explica Waters, que procurou a ajuda do maestro Rick Wentworth, autor de trilhas como as de Piratas do Caribe e A Fantástica Fábrica de Chocolate, para dar um verniz orquestral respeitável à música.

Mesmo assim, Waters se distancia da ideia de um musical popularesco. Durante o voo ao Brasil, forçou-se a assistir à nova versão hollywoodiana de Os Miseráveis, e achou o filme um "monte de m...". A gênese de Ça Ira se fez em 1988, quando Roda-Gil lhe mostrou o libreto. Waters se identificou com a espirituosa abertura, em francês, e fechou-se em um estúdio para compor. Se houve alguma preocupação com o desafio de compor em um idioma completamente novo? Não. "Comecei pela primeira página. Cantei, toquei e gravei. Fui até a página 50", conta ele.

Adicionou o arranjo com um gravador multicanais, fez uma demo. "O (François) Mitterrand chegou a ouvir. Gostou. Quis fazer algo para uma das comemorações da revolução, mas nada aconteceu até 95, quando Rick e eu começamos a trabalhar", explica.

Quando finalmente estreou, em Roma, em 2005, não havia sido a primeira vez que grandes de sua geração se aventuraram pelo território erudito. Paul McCartney já havia composto para orquestra; Billy Joel peças para piano. Stuart Copeland, baterista do Police, já tinha composto a própria ópera, assim como Elvis Costello, que encenou seu trabalho acompanhado de um balé.

"Demorou para que chegássemos a um consenso sobre som e montagem. Mas aprendi muito durante o processo", conta o maestro Rick Wentworth. "Ça Ira diz muito sobre a visão conceitual de Roger, assim como The Wall. Ele estudou arquitetura antes de ser músico, e a ideia estrutural parece vir facilmente a ele", completa.

Ça Ira será encenada com um ótimo elenco nacional, que inclui a soprano Gabriella Pace, o tenor Giovanni Tristacci, o barítono Leonardo Neiva, além de Lina Mendes, também soprano. Roger Waters acompanhou todos os detalhes da nova montagem.

ÇA IRA- HÁ ESPERANÇA

Teatro Municipal de São Paulo. 2, 4, 7 e 9 de maio. 

R$ 40 a R$ 100. 

From www.estadao.com.br

    

Huffington Post - Roger Waters video interview, 15 April 2013

More than 3 decades after Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' debuted, Roger Waters is bringing his iconic rock opera to sold-out arenas around the world. He joins us to discuss music, 'The Wall,' and his criticism of the Israeli occupation.



From live.huffingtonpost.com

92Y - Roger Waters - “Not to talk is not an option”

APRIL 7, 2013




There has been some chatter about the cancellation of my interview at 92Y. By way of clarification, here is what I know.

I was invited by 92Y to take part in an interview at the Theresa L. Kaufmann Concert Hall on the 30 th April this year. I checked out a couple of previous talks on YouTube, and as they appeared to be serious and measured discourse, I accepted the invitation to take part.

Things were complicated when the Opera House in São Paulo, Brazil requested my presence for four full productions of Ça Ira, my opera on the French Revolution, around conflicting dates. In the end, the date for the dress rehearsal of Ça Ira fell on the 30 th April, and so, reluctantly and very apologetically, I asked the team at 92Y if my appearance could be re-scheduled. Assistant Director Jennifer Hausler, who had been helping all along, couldn’t have been more understanding, gave me some alternative dates in June and I accepted June the 19th. Everyone was happy. Well, perhaps not quite everyone.

On April 3rd, my publicist in NY received a phone call from Susan Engel, the Director of Lectures at the 92Y, cancelling my re-scheduled engagement without explanation. She did leave a telephone number which we called, but it was only an answering machine with the message that 92Y was closed for Passover. We left messages asking to talk to Susan Engel but have so far received no reply.

I have since been made aware of rumblings on the net suggesting that resistance in the local Jewish community to my coming engagement may have had something to do with its cancellation. If that be the case it saddens me. In these troubled times, opportunities for serious, measured discourse are too precious to be discarded on the altar of sectarian prejudice. Not to talk is not an option.

Also our conversation at the 92Y would not necessarily have needed to be restricted to our hopes for just and peaceful outcomes for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. I have other interests, we could have talked about how Pink Floyd got its name, or whether David and I will ever get back together (sorry, irony) or suicide rates among returning veterans or Las Madres de Malvinas, or the missing in Mexico, or the concept of Us and Them.

To bundle up in our dread beliefs serves us not at all.

Not to talk is not an option.

Roger Waters 7th April 2013

PS, At time of posting we have still had no response.

From www.rogerwaters.com

Roger Waters, wspaniały człowiek i artysta

SpiritoLibero 2011-02-18


W świecie, w którym od Palestyny po Irak, poprzez Afganistan, wiele niewinnych istot jest codziennie gnębionych i zniewalanych przez barbarzyńskie armie, poniżanych i pozbawianych wszelkiej nadziei, wolności i godności ludzkiej słychać głos artystów, którzy poświęcają swój talent i własne nazwisko by powiedzieć „nie!” barbarzyństwu. Są światełkiem nadziei.


Rogers Waters, legendarny gitarzysta i wokalista mitycznych, nieistniejących już dziś Pink Floyd jest jednym z tych artystów o nadzwyczajnej odwadze.


„ Zabawianie publiczności nigdy mnie nie interesowało, to czego pragnę to poruszyć ją” powtarza zwykle Roger.


Podziwiany w dużo szerszym kręgu niż jedynie świat rocka, wyczulony na walkę narodów ciemiężonych przez potęgi, skazanych na nierówna walkę, Roger Waters ma bardzo ważne przesłanie do przekazania. Swoje albumy zadedykował „poległym na wojnie”. Dla niego mówienie o cierpieniu spowodowanym wojną „służy ich zapobieganiu i powstrzymaniu”


W 1979 album The Wall, którego jest kompozytorem i autorem tekstów, stał się hymnem całego pokolenia. Był to okres, gdy ruch przeciwko wojnie był jeszcze potężny. Teraz śpi.

Roger Waters, osoba o ogromnej pasji, uważa, że każdy powinien coś robić by na nowo rozniecić ten płomień.

„Wydaliśmy ten album pod koniec wojny w Wietnamie. Dziś jesteśmy w trakcie wojny w Iraku i Afganistanie. The Wall było potężnym przesłaniem przeciwko wojnie; to przesłanie jest aktualne także dzisiaj” - powiedział ostatnio. Nie znosi myśli, że całe narody rzuciły się w wir bezsensownej i niczym nie usprawiedliwionej wojny. To ma być przesłaniem jego następnego tourne – The Wall Tour:


"Sens tego wszystkiego jest dla mnie taki: technologie komunikacji naszych czasów mają służyć do wzajemnego zrozumienia czy są oszustwem i doprowadzą do podziałów między nami?
Uważam, że jest to sprawa najwyższej wagi i decyzje jeszcze nie zapadły. Jest wielki szum(w Sieci, przyp.SL) o charakterze handlowym i wiele propagandy lecz czuję, że pod warstwą tego coraz więcej miejsca zaczyna zajmować współczucie. Musimy kontynuować używania blogów, Twittera by się porozumiewać i podzielać opinie(…)


Jako artysta czuję obowiązek by wyrażać mój ostrożny optymizm i dodawać odwagi innym by czynili to samo”


By oddać hołd ofiarom wojen, Roger Waters poprosił rodziny uwikłane w te zdarzenia by pokazywały fotografie swoich bliskich na jego koncertach:


„Proszę Was o to bo wierzę, że wiele z tych tragicznych strat można było uniknąć. Odczuwam empatię z rodzinami wszystkich ofiar i czuję wściekłość na „wszystkich potężnych”, odpowiedzialnych w jednakowy sposób(…)

Na świecie jest wszystko co niezbędne by zaspokoić głód wszystkich, by się ogrzać i żyć w suchym miejscu i mieć telewizor i samochód.

Uczą nas, że mamy obawiać się dzielenia tego wszystkiego z biednymi bo dla nas nie zostanie nic.

Obawiamy się, że w pewnym momencie mogą zechcieć zabrać nam to wszystko i wydajemy pieniądze na armię, dużo więcej niż byłoby im potrzebne by się wyżywić, godnie mieszkać i wykształcić swoje dzieci.


Jest jeszcze jeden mur między nami. Ten mur to media. W rzeczywistości jest środek używany do odciągnięcia naszej uwagi od niewygodnych prawd.


Za słowami Rogera Watersa idą czyny.


W czerwcu 2006, biorąc do serca postulaty palestyńskiego ruchu BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.), odmówił występu w Tel Avivie, przystępując do bojkotu Izraela. Wyjaśnił, że:


„Cierpienia narodu palestyńskiego podczas trwającej 40 lat okupacji są niewyobrażalne dla nas, ludzi Zachodu. Uważam, że jest to walka o wolność. Zmieniłem miejsce mojego koncertu, który miał się odbyć w Neve Shalom bo solidaryzuję się z tymi głosami rozsądku, palestyńskimi i izraelskimi, które starają się znaleźć drogę bez przemocy do sprawiedliwego pokoju”.


Tak na marginesie, Leonard Cohen nie posłuchał tego apelu i w 2009 wybrał Tel Aviw na miejsce swojego koncertu. Jest jakaś różnica?

W czerwcu 2009 Waters odwiedził mały obóz dla uchodźców w Aida na Terenach Okupowanych. Po tej wizycie powiedział:


„Ludzie, którzy nigdy nie widzieli tego co tu się dzieje, nie mogą sobie tego wyobrazić.”

Poruszony tym co zobaczył obiecał wrócić by zagrać koncert na tej umęczonej ziemi jak tylko mur apartheidu zostanie obalony. Był to sposób na podkreślenie swojego poparcia dla bojkotu państwa odpowiedzialnego za apartheid.


W grudniu 2009, w bardzo emocjonalnym liście, publicznie wyraził swoje uznanie i poparcie dla osób wszystkich narodowości zaangażowanych w konkretne akcje zmierzające do wywarcia nacisku na Izrael, by ten przerwał blokadę Gazy:


„Nazywam się Roger Waters. Jestem angielskim muzykiem i mieszkam w Stanach Zjednoczonych.


(…) Wszyscy widzieliśmy, oniemiali, brutalny atak izraelskich sił zbrojnych na mieszkańców Gazy i ciągłe, bezprawne oblężenie. Cierpienia zadane mieszkańcom Gazy podczas inwazji i oblężenia są niewyobrażalne dla tych, którzy tak jak my żyją poza tymi murami.


(…) Używam celowo słowa 'zbrodnie' bo blokada i inwazja zostały określone jako nielegalne przez ONZ i wszystkie najważniejsze organizacje praw człowieka.

Jeśli nie będziemy przestrzegać praw międzynarodowych, jeśli niektóre rządy będą uważały się za stojące ponad prawem to oznacza, że jesteśmy już tylko o krok od barbarzyństwa i anarchii.

(…) Cała ropa Bliskiego Wschodu nie jest warta życia jednego dziecka.(*)


Gdy człowiek, muzyk, poeta jest zdolny wznieść się na taki poziom lojalności i solidarności gdzie czuć prawdę i szczerość to jego słowa maja niezwykłą moc. To co mówi i jak to wyraża świadczy o jego wielkości. I dzieląc się tym z publicznością daje wszystkim niezwykły impuls do działania.

To chyba jest cel życia każdego artysty.


Ofiary palestyńskie, irackie, afgańskie i z wszystkich innych miejsc, do których kierowane jest to przesłanie miłości, zawieszone między życiem a śmiercią, desperacją i nadzieją, wiedzą, że ich ból słyszany jest także przez poetę, w tym przypadku przez Rogera Watersa.


W 2010 roku Roger Waters, razem z innymi artystami ( Le Corbusier e Jean-Luc Godard) został oskarżony o „antysemityzm” przez osobników wyznania mojżeszowego, których jedynym celem jest podtrzymywanie mitu o nieistniejącym „zagrożeniu antysemickim”. [...]

(*) Slowa Rogera Watersa pochodzą z /www.rogerwaters.org

(tł. J. Ruszkiewicz - SL)

Za spiritolibero.blog.interia.pl

Interview with Pink Floyd's Roger Waters about his support for the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Published By: Organised Rage - 8 April 2013



Roger Waters is the most famous rock star to have publicly supported the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

A founder of Pink Floyd — a British rock group which has sold more than 250 million albums — Waters decided to become active in the international Palestinian solidarity movement following a trip to the West Bank in 2006. Shocked by the oppression that he witnessed, Waters spray-painted the words “we don’t need no thought control” — a line from one of his biggest hits — on Israel’s wall.

More recently, Waters has served as a juror on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an initiative aimed at drawing attention to how Western governments and companies aid Israel’s violations of international law. In that capacity, he addressed the United Nations during November last year.

Visiting Brussels for the tribunal’s final session, Waters said he would explore the idea of releasing a single urging musicians not to perform in Israel. He intends to discuss this project with Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who assembled many well-known musicians to record Sun City, a protest song against apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s.

Waters spoke to electronicintifada.net David Cronin.


David Cronin: Do you think the campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel is having an impact?

Roger Waters: I’d like to think that it was.
My experience when I speak to people to and say “don’t go” is either they reply “that sounds good”or they say “don’t you think it’s better to go there?”

Well, no, I fucking don’t.

I think that the kind of boycott that was implemented against the apartheid regime in South Africa back in the day is probably the most effective way to go because the situation is that the Israeli government runs an apartheid regime in Israel, the occupied territories and everywhere else it decides. Let us not forget that they laid waste to most of Lebanon around the time I started getting involved in this issue. They destroyed airports, hospitals, any public buildings they could.

They are running riot and it seems unlikely that running over there and playing the violin will have any lasting effect.

DC: Have you personally asked any fellow musicians to boycott Israel?

RW: Yeah, I have.

DC: Would you prepared to say who those musicians were?

RW: No, I wouldn’t be. It was entirely private between me and them.

All I would say is that part of my involvement here in the Russell Tribunal today and tomorrow is that I am about to publish an open letter written to all my colleagues in the music industry, asking them to join me in the BDS movement. This is not just to colleagues in the UK or US but around the world.

What caused me to write this public letter was an affair where Stevie Wonder was hired to play a gala dinner for the Israeli Defense Forces on 6 December last year. I wrote a letter to him saying that this would be like playing a police ball in Johannesburg the day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. It wouldn’t be a great thing to do, particularly as he was meant to be a UN ambassador for peace. It wasn’t just me. Desmond Tutu also wrote a letter.

To his eternal credit, Stevie Wonder called them [the gala’s organizers] up and said “I didn’t quite get it” [and canceled the performance]. This happened one week after I made a speech to the UN. Neither of these events were reported anywhere in the mainstream media in the United States of America.

Both events were almost as important as [TV personality] Kim Kardashian’s bra size. The way they are not being reported means the media must be under instructions from somewhere not to report these things to the American public, on what grounds I cannot guess.
DC: How do you feel about the support for Israel offered by David Cameron’s government in your native Britain?

RW: Cameron has absolutely adopted Tony Blair’s wolf’s clothing that he [Blair] adopted so eagerly and happily when he went to war in Iraq on George Bush’s coat-tails.

Cameron is entirely content for Great Britain to be a satellite nation of the US. None of us can quite understand why.

There is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. The EU’s diplomatic emissaries [in the West Bank] joined together [recently]. They protested the settlements and asked for sanctions. This is almost unprecedented. But the governments of these emissaries have done nothing and continue to do nothing.

I have been very disillusioned with UK foreign policy really since [Harold] Wilson [a Labor Party prime minister during the 1960s and 1970s]. It was such a political turnabout from [Labor leaders] Keir Hardie and [Clement] Attlee and the principles of British socialism. It was a precursor for taking over the country with the appalling monetarist strategies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. I’m quite ashamed of the way we have behaved. The UK has been royally fucking the world over for centuries — not least you bog Irish.

DC: One of your fellow jurors on the Russell Tribunal, Stéphane Hessel, died recently. Did you know him well?

RW: I knew him very little. What a brave, eloquent, good-hearted, brilliant man.

DC: As a musician, have you had a chance to check out the vibrant Palestinian hip-hop scene?

RW: I haven’t. But if it thrives, I can’t find anything negative about that, so long as it’s not about bling and booty and wearing a baseball cap sideways. So long as it’s about protest and realism, rather than the flight from realism that hip-hop is in the US.

DC: In your speech to the UN, you paid tribute to Rachel Corrie. Is there anything you would like to say about Rachel Corrie, given that it’s the tenth anniversary of her murder?

RW: Her parents attended the [Russell Tribunal] session in New York [last year]. It was very moving.

DC: Do you support the hunger strikes being undertaken by a number of Palestinian prisoners?

RW: The thing about political prisoners is: it doesn’t matter if you are in the Maze [in Northern Ireland] or in a prison somewhere in Israel, your options are very limited. Hunger strikes or dirty protests are some of the very few options to bring attention to your specific predicament.

I respect the brave men and women who go to those lengths. As we know, hunger-striking is not like going on a diet. It is real, dangerous and painful. You don’t do it without compelling reasons.

David Cronin is a contributing editor with The Electronic Intifada. His book Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation is published by Pluto Press.
---------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Tony Greenstein for heads up.

From www.organizedrage.com
 

Waters e quel viaggio della memoria a Cassino L'ex Pink Floyd cerca il padre, caduto di guerra

Corriere della Sera - 30 marzo 2013

Alessandro Fulloni


Passi lenti, fermandosi spesso nel silenzio del camposanto per accarezzare a lungo il marmo delle croci di guerra. I fan sono lontani, lo guardano assiepati dal ciglio di una strada di campagna puntandolo con lo zoom della telecamerina o della digitale. Roger Waters, leggenda del rock, ex cantante e bassista dei Pink Floyd, non sembra più farci caso. Continua a camminare sul prato del cimitero inglese alla ricerca della tomba del padre, Eric Fletcher Waters, ufficiale dell'esercito di Sua Mestà morto nella carneficina dello sbarco ad Anzio, nella primavera del 1944, quando migliaia di soldati alleati furono falciati nei pressi della spiaggia da mortai e mitragliatrici della Wehrmacht.





LA TOMBA DEL PADRE - I resti del sottotenente, arruolato nei Royal Fusiliers, truppe d'elite che durante la guerra furono impegnate dal Pacifico alla Normandia, sono sepolti proprio nel cimitero di guerra di Cassino assieme a migliaia di tombe di militari tedeschi, francesi, polacchi, neozelandesi e italiani. Nel pomeriggio di venerdì 29 il Waters è andato a cercare la tomba del padre. E' la prima volta che vede Cassino, teatro durante la campagna d'Italia di una feroce battaglia che vide anche l'abbazia benedettina distrutta sotto i bombardamenti alleati. Il compositore rock non sa nemmeno dove sia la tomba di suo padre, a cui ha dedicato alcuni tra i brani più belli, in bilico tra memoria, malinconico dolore e impegno antimilitarista. Alle telecamere di TeleUniverso, emittente del litorale pontino e della Ciociaria, l'ex dei Pink Floyd racconta di aver compiuto «questo viaggio perchè il mio passato è il mio futuro». L'idea di Waters, maturata dopo aver saputo «che mio padre è sepolto con ogni probabilità in questo cimitero», è quella di girare un video che però «non è destinato alla pubblicazione».

A CASSINO IN VAN - La leggenda del rock arriva a Cassino a bordo di un van dai vetri oscurati. Quando esce qualcuno lo riconosce. E in pochi istanti si forma una folla di circa 200 persone. I dischi in vinile di «The Wall» - proprio il 33 giri che contiene uno dei brani dedicati al padre - si moltiplicano tra le mani dei fan che vogliono assolutamente un autografo. Lui, paroliere dell'intimismo e della solitudine, mai troppo a suo agio tra il pubblico, sulle prime si schermisce. Si «scioglie» solo quando qualcuno gli regala la sciarpa del Cassino calcio. Waters non è solo uno straordinario poeta del rock, è anche un tifoso sfegatato dei «Gunners», la squadra londinese dell'Arsenal. Apprezza, sorride, pronuncia un «grazie» in italiano che sembra commosso. Poi scompare nel furgoncino. Quando s'allontana volta lo sguardo verso il cimitero e la tomba del sottotenente dei Fusiliers caduto ad Anzio per liberare l'Italia gli deve sembrare vicinissima.

From www.corriere.it