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FULL TO HIMSELF, ALONE (Joseph Cabon) London 2017 James Schouten
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: To Himself, Alone
- Composer: Cabon Joseph
- Libretto: Joseph Cabon
- Venue & Opera Company: RADA Studios Theatre, London, UK
- Recorded: August 12, 2017
- Type: Concert Live
- Singers: James Schouten
- Conductor: Sonia Ben-Santamaria
- Orchestra:
- Stage Director: Brock Roberts
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Tête à Tête
- Date Published: 2017
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
The initial idea for this work dates back to schooldays, but it was seeing Arthur Boyd’s series Nebudchadnezzar recently that was the major trigger for the realisation of To Himself, Alone. Made in 1969-1972, Boyd’s paintings concentrated on the king’s supposed period of madness, as an allegory of the Vietnam War, then at its height.
To Himself, Alone is concerned with Nebudchadnezzar as an individual and his experience of the dual states of madness and sanity.
For seven years the ‘mad’ king lived a madness that took illusion for truth: eating grass, running with the animals, open to all forms of wildness; eccentric and outside of normality. Then he is returned to power.
The notion in this piece is that, far from having been a barren, fruitless existence, Nebudchadnezzar realises that he saw more clearly and experienced the world more keenly during those seven years than before or since. It’s a state he longs to return to, especially when the weight of responsibility is onerous. At such times he straddles the gulf between mad illusion and painful sanity.
It is through the internal commentary continually playing alongside the visible side of human lives that we are able to listen in to Nebchadnezzar’s inner monologue.