Immersive Classical Music Theatre

Transfigured Night

At Guildhall School of Music and Drama's Milton Court, on April 24 & 25, Hunter Noack will showcase Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht by going beyond a traditional live performance of the piece to a cross-arts experience with collaborative roots that include students from Guildhall’s music, acting, and technical theatre departments. Noack aims to enhance the audience’s experience of this quintessentially romantic piece by putting both performers and audience in the Milton Court’s stunning new Studio Theatre, which will be transformed into a nighttime forest.

A growing number of professional artists seek engagement with a more diverse audience by moving away from traditional venues and programs. Theatre companies like PunchDrunk perform in warehouses and abandoned hotels, while orchestras like the Britten Sinfonia are noted for bold programming and versatility within the concert hall. Re-Form’s productions, like “Transfigured Night”, fit between these two pioneering contemporary ensembles. “In this production, we transplant the classical music cannon into the territory of immersive theatre”, says Noack.

Schoenberg’s sextet was inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem Verklärte Nacht; however, rather than musically depict the specific action of the text, he expresses the emotion behind the words and the setting in nature. The poem tells the story of a woman walking in the forest with her lover. She confesses to him she is with child, made pregnant by another man. The man comforts her, forgives her, and ultimately accepts the unborn child as his own transforming the mood of the forest from dark and cold, to a place of joyful shimmering moonlight.

Thespians and audience will be scattered together among the pine trees, all attention focused on the moonlit sextet. Diverse somatic and cerebral stimulation will allow the audience to viscerally connect with Schoenberg’s masterpiece.