SHSH

News in Vogue Japan
https://www.vogue.co.jp/lifestyle/news/2019-07-20/georgebenjamin

Interview in Bachtrack
https://bachtrack.com/interview-shizuka-hariu-written-on-skin-suntory-hall-july-2019

The plot of derives from the 13th-century French novel Le Coeur mangé, written by Guillem de Cabestany. The original story, as I understand it, is more concentrated on the topic of love triangles, whereas Written on Skin gives us time- and space-travelling through the music on top of this twisted love story.

I read Martin Crimp’s libretto several times in order to direct a film for Suntory Hall’s stage. The story contains such rich and complex metaphors and it goes beautifully alongside George Benjamin’s music.

First, I interpreted the metaphoric narrative lines, such as the time- and space -travelling, the political situation, women’s rights, religion, the power of man, hierarchy in society, supernatural angels, and illuminated art in Medieval times. Next, I wanted to visualise these metaphors within my creative direction. These complex narrative elements are composed by short selected words.

It is almost like reading Haiku, where we imagine and interpret between the lines and Benjamin’s impactful music transports us naturally from scene to scene.

This is one of the most difficult set designs in my 15-year career because it has to respect both the design of the concert hall and needs of the opera.

Designing scenography with an orchestra in mind is a challenge.
Maestro Kazushi Ono and the producer Shirakawa asked me to create a film on the stage that can provide limitless scenery for spectators, so I had to find a way of making my set design abstract and nothing too concrete so to avoid duplicating what is
seen on film.

I would like to make this film as concrete and real for the architectural environment as possible, although the nature scenes are more abstract, allowing the audience space to imagine and feel the harmony between the lines of the opera.
Besides that, I was challenged to depict contemporary spaces to show clearly that Agnès travels between Medieval and contemporary times. Film makes this possible, whereas it is harder to express this idea on stage; therefore we are working
with both physical scenography and digital film.