KV385 is an "archaeological investigation" of Mozart's Haffner Symphony. Using an electronic sound environment, an adaptation of the score, and theatrical tools, the symphony is explored from every angle, "auscultated" through various perspectives. The stage setup places the orchestra in a snowy forest, conducive to shifting light effects. Video operators work around the edges, capturing close-ups and musicians’ gestures, offering a different visual interpretation of the "orchestra-machine."
Musically, each movement of the symphony becomes the subject of a specific investigation protocol. The first is titled "freeze-frame"; here, the orchestra halts and freezes at regular intervals, making way for phonographies that tell other stories—those of the contemporary world. In the second movement, Artificial Intelligence attempts to take control. An authoritarian voice gives commands to the orchestra, plunged into darkness and revealed only through infrared cameras. The third movement, titled "mise en abyme", retains only five bars of the original minuet, endlessly repeated and layered into an electronic texture. Finally, the last movement incorporates other classical masterpieces: Boléro, The Rite of Spring, Ode to Joy, and Also sprach Zarathustra... All these references are grafted onto Mozart, who, in the final bars, seems to almost implode from within.
Ultimately, the project questions our relationship with these great classical works and the ritualistic dimension they carry in performance. The stage and sound design open up new spaces and transform the original symphony into an object stripped of its roots, lifted out of time, and exposed to the contemporary gaze.
