On Saturday March 14th, in Creteil, near Paris, I was able to attend an
incredible performance dedicated to J. S. Bach by the Catalan (autonomous
province east of Spain) stager Carles Santos (Carles, not Carlos). One
hour and a half.

Carles Santos, who is probably 55 or 60, may be defined as a genial and
mad pianist, and a real showman, with a very gifted cast of about 10
people and a choir of about 20.

Imagine a large square stage, bordered by 33 huge plastic busts of
J. S.b Bach, all white and identical and 10 feet high, which are
suspended to the ceiling by cables, and slightly swinging during the
whole performance, allowing people, pianos and accessories to enter
the stage between them by pushing them violently aside.

I shall not describe the whole performance, with dancers, a violin
player, very good singers, playing alternatively as caricatures or
wonderful concertists J. S. Bach music.

For the MMD, the most interesting number is the final one. A remote-
controlled upright pianola (I do not know more about it), with a real
paper-roll and playing quite well, may travel alone on the stage thanks
to a platform with rollers on which it is put. At the same time, several
actors move 2 independent grand pianos manually played by Carlos Santos
and another pianist, each piano being equally mounted with stool and
pianist on a platform on rollers.

So now imagine for the final quarter of an hour of the performance,
these 3 machines, the 2 human ones and the automatic one, competing
both musically and "physically" on the stage. The remote-controlled
pianola pursues alternatively the two other pianos, which go on playing
of course, trying to chase them in the wings through the swinging giant
busts of J. S. Bach ... whereas the poor humans try to escape the vicious
machines by rolling away pianos and pianists on the stage ...  What a
gigantic cat and mice game (play tag ?).

Of course, at the end of the performance, the pneumatic piano-machine
wins and ends up playing alone on the deserted stage till the final note
of the almost mechanical music of J. S. Bach.

The audience gave an ovation to this highly symbolic, musical, and
entertaining performance !

The title of the performance is : La Pantera Imperial, imagined and
staged by Carles (not Carlos !) Santos.

Best regards,

Philippe

Philippe Rouille
(Paris, France)
rouille@cnam.fr
http://www.cnam.fr/museum/musica_mecanica/