FLIGHT PATTERN (Górecki) Ballet London 2019 Francesca Chiejina

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Flight Pattern  
• Composer: Górecki Henryk   
• Libretto: various    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Royal Opera House, London, UK, Royal Ballet  
• Recorded: 2019
• Type: Staged Opera Live

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite has been acclaimed as ‘one of the most talented and intriguing choreographers working today’ (New York Times). Flight Pattern, created in 2017, is her first work for The Royal Ballet. Critically-acclaimed at its premiere, Flight Pattern is a poignant response to one of the biggest humanitarian crises facing current society. This large-scale ensemble work, which takes a powerful and sombre look at the ongoing refugee crisis, is set to music from Górecki’s ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’. Górecki’s music, often associated with the Holocaust, explores themes of motherhood and the separation of families. Pite gives these themes new meaning in a work that moves from the big picture of displaced communities to focus on the emotions of individuals: the large ensemble cast moves as one body, packed together in tight rows, until one distraught couple are marked out from the crowd through a poignant pas de deux.

Words Accompanying Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
(in translation)
First Movement
My son, my chosen and beloved
Share your wounds with your mother
And because, dear son, I have always carried you in my heart,
And always served you faithfully
Speak to your mother, to make her happy,
Although you are already leaving me, my cherished hope.
(Lamentation of the Holy Cross Monastery from the “Lysagóra Songs” collection. Second half of the 15th century)

Second Movement
No, Mother, do not weep,
Most chaste Queen of Heaven
Support me always.
“Zdrowas Mario.” (*)
(Prayer inscribed on wall 3 of cell no. 3 in the basement of “Palace,” the Gestapo’s headquarters in Zadopane; beneath is the signature of Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna, and the words “18 years old, imprisoned since 26 September 1944.”)
(*) “Zdrowas Mario” (Ave Maria)—the opening of the Polish prayer to the Holy Mother

Third Movement
Where has he gone
My dearest son?
Perhaps during the uprising
The cruel enemy killed him

Ah, you bad people
In the name of God, the most Holy,
Tell me, why did you kill
My son?

Never again
Will I have his support
Even if I cry
My old eyes out

Were my bitter tears
to create another River Oder
They would not restore to life
My son

He lies in his grave
and I know not where
Though I keep asking people
Everywhere

Perhaps the poor child
Lies in a rough ditch
and instead he could have been
lying in his warm bed

Oh, sing for him
God’s little song-birds
Since his mother
Cannot find him

And you, God’s little flowers
May you blossom all around
So that my son
May sleep happily
(Folk song in the dialect of the Opole region)

(Visited 260 times, 1 visits today)