Spleen

“Which one of us, in his moments of ambition, has not dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical, without rhythm and without rhyme, supple enough and rugged enough to adapt itself to the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of reverie, the jibes of conscience?
It was, above all, out of my exploration of huge cities, out of the medley of their innumerable interrelations, that this haunting ideal was born.“
Charles Baudelaire, Preface to Paris Spleen, 1869

Spleen is a kaleidoscope of pictures, so songs and miniatures, inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s collection of poems in prose Le Spleen de Paris, which was published posthumously in 1869. Mankind on the threshold to modernity is described in the scenes played out between thirst for life and longing for death, between a romantic search for infinity and a brutal triviality.

The play is open in this production: the performers are on the stage with puppets and musical instruments, Baudelaire’s texts spoken by children and recorded on tape. The magic of this kaleidoscope develops in the imagination between actors, material and audience: A sequence of pictures and live-music, that wants to counterpoint Baudelaire’s vision of the world and open it for an understanding from the present.