Heart of Darkness. Ciklus Ensemble & Yelmo de Mambrino Theater

Prices: €16 and €14

Duration: 65 min.

Inspired by Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Conrad captured an inner journey into human consciousness, into its struggle between savagery and reason, between approaching God or believing oneself to be God. Set in King Leopold II's Belgian Congo, idolatry and excesses follow one another until they generate a horror for which everyone denies responsibility. Ultimately, it is the individual who, faced with the surrounding horror, is forced to battle with himself in order not to self-destruct. In a society such as today's, where individualistic hedonism is the prevailing value and whose consequences are felt from the global economy to intimate relationships, the diary of the sailor Marlow questions us about the path to choose.

On a stage enveloped in white candles, Marlowe, the sole actor, will relive his journey down the Congo River, conversing with shadow puppets, visiting places he has lived in, faceless silhouettes, darkness engraved on his heart, ghosts of all those who return to his memory to bear witness.

With the voice as the main icon of opera, Estrada Torío analyzes the spectrum of the voice and instruments, which are deconstructed and electronically reinserted in the form of an enveloping space.

Following its premiere at the Mixtur Festival in Barcelona and at the Palau de la Música in Valencia last year, Ciklus Ensemble presents a new expanded version. This project has been made possible thanks to the 2018 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators from the BBVA Foundation awarded to Iñaki Estrada Torío.

ARTISTIC CREDITS

Music composition and production director: Iñaki Estrada Torío

Script and dramatic direction: Jesús Eguía Armenteros (Yelmo de Mambrino Theater)

Musical direction: Asier Puga (Ciklus Ensemble)

Electronic assistance, creation, and foley: Juan Andrés Beato and Alicia Lázaro Arteaga

CAST (RECORDED VOICE): HELMET OF MAMBRINO THEATER

Marlow: Marcos García Barrero

Company Director: Rafael Navarro

Palala: Javier Ortiz

Russian: Jorge Lorente

Kurtz's fiancée: Sandra Jiménez

Pilgrim: Jesús Eguía Armenteros

Kurtz: Ernesto Gil

LIVE MUSIC: CIKLUS ENSEMBLE

Violin: David López

Cello: Paula Azcona

Flute: Rakel Rivera

Clarinet: Lucía Otaegi

Accordion: Mateja Zenzerovic

Percussion: Isaac Irimía

Piano: Nikolaos Stavlas

Director: Asier Puga

CIKLUS ENSEMBLE

Since its creation in 2010, Ciklus Ensemble has developed a personal style when creating its artistic proposals. At Ciklus, experimentation and the search for new forms of communication, as well as exchange and collaboration between different artistic disciplines, have become increasingly important in the design and development of its projects. Music is mixed with words, technology, and movement in search of new artistic experiences that question what a concert and an ensemble of the 21st century can or should be.

Since its inception, Ciklus Ensemble has performed at festivals and concert series throughout Spain. From the outset, Ciklus has also developed an intense and fruitful commitment to contemporary musical creation, commissioning and/or premiering more than a dozen works by different composers.

Ciklus Ensemble's interest in Iñaki Estrada's musical world, and the artistic and creative rapport that has always existed between the group and the composer, has led them to collaborate on several occasions. The fact that Iñaki Estrada wanted to work with Ciklus Ensemble for the premiere of his opera "El corazón de las tinieblas" (Heart of Darkness) represents a great challenge for the group, as well as an enormous thrill to work with Estrada again and immerse themselves once more in his sound imagery.

YELMO DE MAMBRINO THEATER

Theater collective founded in 2006 by Alicia Pilarte, Jesús Eguía Armenteros, Gema Rabasco, and Sergio Álvarez under the quixotic premise of transforming a barber's basin or chamber pot into the most wonderful knight's helmet ever forged: the helmet of Mambrino. Their creations are based on the magical richness of the actor and the poetic possibilities of the transmutation of objects. Since its inception, Yelmo de Mambrino has worked with the music of composer Iñaki Estrada Torío. This is the sixth show they have premiered.