The Great Inquisitor in Pieśń Kozła Theatre
The Great Inquisitor is a spectacle exploring the new motif of spoken opera rooted in the musical sources of theatre in the Pieśń Kozła Theatre.
The Great Inquisitor is a spectacle exploring the new motif of spoken opera rooted in the musical sources of theatre in the Pieśń Kozła (Song of the Goat) Theatre. Inspired by a fragment of The Karamazov Brothers by Fyodor Dostoevsky will face the difficult relationship between the human being and God. We see the title protagonist usurping the right to be equal to the Creator on the one hand and despising and showing no mercy to Christ upon meeting him on the other hand.
The moral dilemma of the title protagonist results from the conflict between faith and knowledge as an eternal existential problem. The Inquisition was a harsh practice that effectively eliminated persons suspected of heresy. Being different was a heresy. Fighting against dissenters played an important part in maintaining power. In Grzegorz Bral’s spectacle, the main protagonist fanatically focuses on fighting God perceived as an enemy. Losing love and stimulating the power greed, he breaks the bond with the Spiritual.
The meeting of the Inquisitor with the Messiah is a painful experience that testifies to the perverse nature of the human being. “A disciple has turned against his Master” – another example of a well-known topos shows the huge temptation of the “reign of souls” and the authority that does not accept freedom, but only seeks applause and its own advantages. The Great Inquisitor is a difficult and existentially multidimensional story in which the protagonist must face his inner demons.
The role of God in the spectacle is illustrated by musical harmonies with which the protagonist dialogues and argues. Sounds turn into a metaphor of spirituality. The composition played on the psalterium becomes a sacred language, thereby returning to the roots of the sacred, where the perfect musicality of spheres was God’s language. Referring to the tradition of language dichotomy based on the division into the sacred and the profane, the spectacle deals with the bipolarity of the human – God relationship, thus exploring the condition of the human being and penetrating into the darkest corners of the soul.
Production:
Direction: Grzegorz Bral Music: Rafał Habel Stage design: Robert Florczak Costumes: Elżbieta Terlikowska Actors: Bogdan Koca Rafał Habel Duration: 1 hour Language: Polish Premiere: 23rd February 2018
Event details:
piesnkozla.pl
