Invasion 14: the Prisoner, the Priest
Saturday, January 14, 2017
9:00 pm | Auditorium, ground floor
A new work by Christopher Vath for narrator, violin, cello and piano set in the squalid WWI prison of the Maxence Van Der Meersch novel with Kenneth Genuard, narrator; David Han Marks, violin; Rubin Kodheli, cello; and Christopher Vath, piano
Daniel had been in Rheinbach fourteen months, since the beginning of 1916. Convicted, sentenced to five years imprisonment for the burning of the factory, he had travelled by rail to Aachen and marched across the city as Germans taunted him, spitting in his face. He had spent a few days in jail before taking another train to Rheinbach, where he had endured the humiliation of photographs, fingerprints and measurements of every sort. Then he had been stripped of his clothes and his name.
With those few lines, the narrator leads us into Maxence Van der Meersch’s gripping epic WWI novel, Invasion 14. An interweaving of multiple stories during the German occupation of a northern French town, Invasion 14 is a brilliant tapestry of normal people living in extreme situations. An episode in a wretched German prison introduces us to two prisoners: one on the verge of physical and emotional collapse, and one who has recently arrived and understands his need to act to save his very self. Author/musician Christopher Vath provides a stunning musical score that searches the depths of an encounter that brings light into the darkness. Music by Ligeti, Hagen, Babajanian and others weaves through this story seamlessly, thus giving rise to an entirely new dramatic art form where music and word equally contribute to the overall narrative. For narrator, piano, violin and cello, Invasion 14: the Prisoner, the Priest will get inside both the head and heart in this unique theatrical event.
