Josse De Pauw & Jan Kuijken - Lod Muziektheater

A house in Flanders. A bare room where old men sleep restlessly, waiting for what they do not see coming. One of them – the seer – ventures to climb shakily up to a window high in the wall. He describes the approach of a strange rider: death. What can you do with your life when death comes trotting along? Who wouldn’t celebrate on finding out that death is not coming for him?
A house in Jerusalem. A bare room where mourning women shelter from the chaos outside. The city is in uproar after the Crucifixion. Sorrow and despair and the big questions: who loved him most? Whom did he love most? Until the mother of the crucified man crawls into the house on her hands and knees.
In this two-part play Josse De Pauw presents an adaptation of ‘The Strange Rider’ and ‘The Women at the Grave’, two stories with a tragi-comic air by the Belgian author Michel de Ghelderode (1898-1962). Jan Kuijken composed music for a large orchestra. His composition is interwoven with the soundscape to make a film score for the stage. In the first part, the words force their way violently through the music, and in the second part they let themselves be carried along on almost fluid song lines. A piece of musical theatre, sometimes grotesque, and then extremely fragile. A biblical puppet show.