Using the space as an instrument

To open his first season as artistic director at the Luzerner Theater, Benedikt von Peter presented “Prometeo” by Luigi Nono. This late work by the Italian composer integrates the sound of the venue as if it were an instrument, using it like a ‘voice’. Most previous performances of “Prometeo” have taken place in large halls or churches. Performing it in the Lucerne theatre was, then, a special challenge for the sound directors from the Freiburg experimental studio that Nono himself worked in close cooperation with in the 1980s.

 
Even ‘old’ spaces can be used to create innovative listening and viewing experiences, as Benedikt von Peter and stage designer Natascha von Steiger proved at the opening night of “Prometeo” in Lucerne. Luigi Nono’s (1924-1990) seminal work uses “the space as an instrument, as a voice, as an integral part of the musical event,” as the composer himself put it. For the world premiere in 1984, in the deconsecrated church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Nono deliberately incorporated the sound of the church’s acoustics into the composition.
Luigi Nono developed “Prometeo”, his last major composition, in close cooperation with the Freiburg-based experimental studio ...