Cabaret musicale per voce e strumenti (2005)
Testi di W.H.Auden e Chester Kallman

Luisa Castellani, voce - Quintetto Bibiena - Roberto Cominati, pianoforte

The Entertainment of the Senses è un poemetto scritto da W.H.Auden in collaborazione con Chester Kallman nel 1973, poco prima di morire, e concepito come interpolazione alla masque secentesca Cupid and Death di James Shirley. Il testo fu pubblicato postumo nel 1974, all'interno di una breve raccolta di scritti di Auden intitolata Grazie nebbia (Thank you, fog).
Ciò che subito pare evidente in esso è la sua valenza teatrale: un Ciambellano (Imbonitore?, Banditore?, Domatore?) annuncia l'imminente spettacolo che cinque scimmiette si apprestano a mettere in scena, interpretando ciascuna uno dei cinque diversi sensi: Tatto, Gusto, Olfatto, Udito e Vista si susseguono nel dire la loro sui tempi che corrono, ironizzando ferocemente, ciascuno dal proprio angolo visuale, sull'affannata rincorsa dell'uomo ai feticci del Progresso e del Benessere materiale. L'amaro e sferzante moralismo di Auden traspare in controluce attraverso il rutilante fuoco d'artificio del giuoco verbale spinto al parossismo, dove rime, assonanze, controtempi, improvvisi cambi di ritmo danno vita ad un autentico 'teatro della parola'.
La musica ha raccolto la sfida lanciata dal testo di Auden, orientandosi verso un'atmosfera da cabaret colto e raffinato, sì, ma con un occhio anche a due modelli accattivanti come lo Schoenberg inedito e sorprendente dei Brettl lieder e il Bob Fosse paradigmatico di Cabaret.

The Entertainment of the Senses is probably the last poem written by Auden bifore dying in 1973: it is an interpolation for the masque of the seventeenth century Cupid and Death by James Shirley. The poem has been published in 1974, after the poet’s death, within the volume Thank you fog. What is clear to everybody is the theatrical character of this text, an authentic ‘theatre of the word’. A Chamberlain announce the forthcoming show that five little apes are going to put on stage, playing everyone the role of one of the five different senses: Touch, Taste, Smell, Hearing and Sight follow one to another one telling their opinions on the present times, making a strong irony – each one from the own point of view – about the anxious race of the men towards the idols of Progress and Well-being.
The five instruments of the woodwind quintet are coupled each to a different sense, playing a solistic role in that section: Clarinet with Touch, Flute with Taste, Bassoon with Smell, Horn with Hearing and Oboe with Sight. The music collects the challenge of Auden’s text, choosing the way of a learned and refined cabaret, without forgetting two famous masterpieces like the Brettl lieder by Arnold Schoenberg and the Cabaret by Bob Fosse.

Estratto (abstract)

ALL FIVE (Stretto)

Though our views be reprehensible
To you and indefensible,
Please admit they're comprehensible
And, naturally, sensible.
Good-bye!
When you get a little older
You'll discover like Isolde:
« We must love one another and die! »

(Enter Death from behind, unseen by the others.
He folds his arms and looks on.)

CHAMBERLAIN

Dear listeners, you have heard tonight
What my five apes have had to say
About our senses five,
Through which we know we are alive:
Touch and Taste and Smell
As well as Hearing and Sight,
And the different roles they play
Now as compared with yesterday.
Cupid, the god, would certainly nod,
And you'll all agree,I'm sure,with me
That they are perfectly right.
The moral is, as they have said:
Be with-it, with-it, with-it till you're dead.