Programme

La lingua del corpo by Hèctor Parra

This exhibition presents sixteen red chalk drawings of Classical torsos made by Hector Parra during his residency at the Villa Medici-French Academy in Rome. The project for this residency, from September 2021 to August 2022, was to compose the chamber opera Orgia, based on the theatrical work of the same name by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The drawings are presented against a background entirely composed of the manuscript score for the new opera: the composer drew the torsos to hear their voices, to feel their inner tensions and their external rhythms, and so to stimulate his lyrical imagination to give life to the protagonists of Orgia. Hector Parra studied in minute detail this lingua del corpo, which is foundational to our culture, so as to re-express it through art and gesture in a direct, palpable way. Each brushstroke reveals its direction, and the energy with which it was made and its relationship to all the other brushstrokes. It is thus inspired by the characteristic, radical way in which Pasolini explores the past to cast new light on the present and show us perhaps what the future might be. After each session of drawing in the museums of Rome, the composer imbued his work with the psychological states that he experienced before the Greek and Roman originals. And so, before the text of Pasolini's Orgia adapted by Calixto Bieito, gave birth to the lyricism that will find its ultimate expression through the operatic voices of Leigh Melrose, Aušrinė Stundytė and Jone Martínez.