If you were there on 25 February 2025 for the premiere of Il Teatro Rosso at Montreal’s Théatre Plaza, you know what to expect from the music (by American Takasugi) created for this mind-bogglingly perplexing psychotronic musical theatre event. Like thousands of drops scattered as they pass in front of a fan, the score’s hyper-pointillist, gurgling sprays shower us with sonorities, colours, timbral twigs, glittering sequins and other microscopic shrapnel. Despite the entirely abstract nature of the musical persona of Il Teatro Rosso, and the initial bewilderment of our senses, accustomed to lines and shapes that are more easily absorbed, we eventually allow ourselves to be taken in by the bursts of sound and to immerse ourselves in them, appreciating the playful nature of the whole. It’s avant-garde music, yes, but it’s all smiles.
Above all, it’s a score that demands the utmost precision from its performers. They are exceptional, by the way, under the collective name of No Hay Banda, an ultra-creative Montreal band that includes such luminaries as Lori Freedman, Felix Del Tredici, Adrianne Munden-Dixon, Noam Bierstone, Sarah Albu, and other magnificent specimens of Quebec’s up-and-coming avant-garde music scene.
For a better understanding of the concept of Il Teatro Rosso, check out my interview with Noam Bierstone.
If you like Kagel, if you like Lachenmann and his principle of instrumental musique concrète, or if you love the psychedelic universe of David Lynch, Il Teatro Rosso should be on your to-see-and-hear list
