In My End Is My Beginning
With Lore Binon (soprano), Anthony Romaniuk (pianoforte), Sofie Vanden Eynde (lute & theorbo), Anouk De Clercq & Tom Callemin (visuals), Jo Thielemans (technique), Luc Schaltin (light design), Robert Zuidam (composition), Lieve Meeussen (costumes)
In the End is My Beginning, our performance title, is a reference to our protagonist, Mary, Queen of Scots. The historical Mary was a fascinating figure whose life and death, both tragic, have inspired many artists over the centuries, down to the present day.
We’ve gathered all the various elements of her story together to create a dramatised performance. Biographising Mary Stuart is definitely not our aim; instead, we’re interested in zooming in on her tormented inner life in order to explore the complexity of the human character and the universal emotions that her story evokes. Our goal is therefore to create a contemporary soundscape, free from any historical context, that contains the multiplicity of these questions within itself.
We’ve joined forces with composer Robert Zuidam to combine the existing musical material (from Schumann and Carissimi to Scottish folksongs) into a single coherent whole. Zuidam has also composed a new song cycle for the performance, a setting of Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky’s Twenty Sonnets to Mary, Queen of Scots.
The visual stage design for our project heightens the emotional impact of the performance, highlighting the sense of repression and isolation which were emblematic emotions in Mary Stuart’s own life. The visuals are thus a way of helping audiences identify with Mary’s solitary and conflicted inner world.
Our première (part of the Operadagen festival in Rotterdam) received a 5-star review in Holland’s de Theaterkrant in May 2018: https://www.theaterkrant.nl/recensie/in-my-end-is-my- beginning/lore-binon-sofie-vanden-eynde-anthony-romaniuk/
early music by de Sermisy, Carissimi, Schumann, Donizetti,… new music by Robert Zuidam