[sold out] Claron McFadden & Claire Chevallier

Welcome to the 19th edition of Klarafestival! The theme Crossroads - Come Together keenly evokes the convergence of the audience, the artists and their inspiring concerts. A meeting place where the leading lights of international classical music enter into dialogue with challenging creations and young talent. 

The inspiration for this edition comes from festival artist Claron McFadden. As she told us in an interview, “I stand at a crossroads where styles and generations cross, meet, and collide”. This notion forms the core of the programme. We hope you will enjoy Klarafestival as a sanctuary of hope, polyphony and beauty in all its forms. As a place where the familiar takes on new meaning and where new experiences take you by surprise. 

Jan Raes, chairman

Joost Fonteyne, intendant

Chantal Pattyn, manager Klara

Chez Bricktop is part of the song cycle series Americans in Paris, in which soprano Claron McFadden and pianist Claire Chevallier highlight African-American artists who migrated to Europe from the USA after the First World War. 

Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith (1894 - 1984), better known as Bricktop, was an American dancer, jazz singer, vaudeville artist and owner of the famous nightclub Chez Bricktop in Paris. She has been described as one of the most legendary and enduring figures of 20th-century American cultural history. Her nightclub was a hub for French artists as well as for African-Americans who had travelled (or moved permanently) to Paris in order to escape the systemic racism and constant denial of humanity they faced in America. In Paris they found not only recognition and acceptance, but sometimes even fame and fortune. Through the story of Bricktop as well as interviews, McFadden and Chevallier recreate the musical atmosphere of Paris Montmartre, then known as the ‘Harlem of Paris’. They explore the arrival of jazz from America and the influence it had on the French musical landscape of the time. Director Luigi De Angelis conceived Chez Bricktop as a live radio programme, to superimpose the atmosphere of a club of a hundred years ago on the structure of a contemporary music broadcasting studio with audience.

Claron McFadden and Claire Chevallier on Chez Bricktop 

Claron McFadden: “The idea for Chez Bricktop came out of my own journey from America to Europe in the 1980s. My 'exposure’ at a young age to Western European culture, through literature, cinema, art and especially music, resonated strongly within me, and started me on a journey to artistic discovery, combining European Classical music with my roots in African music, Gospel, Blues and Jazz. In school I learnt about the Harlem Renaissance and again, something resonated within me: Black artists in segregated America, creating a safe place in which to express themselves intellectually. I learnt that many of them had travelled to Paris, even moving there permanently to escape the systemic racism and constant denial of humanity they faced on a daily basis. And while I perfectly understood the need to escape the legacy of slavery, I was intrigued by the choice of Paris as their haven. Now, 100 years later, I find myself reflecting on my own journey to Europe, by retracing the footsteps of those artists, writers, and especially musicians from the Harlem Renaissance and beyond. In particular I’m interested in those who found not only recognition and acceptance in Paris, but also fame and fortune; the same artists who have been completely ignored by history. This project, therefore, takes its name from one of the most famous interbellum nightclubs in Montmartre, owned and run by the iconic Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith.”

Claire Chevallier: “Claron and I wanted to deepen the wonderful musical collaboration we started with Façade: The Final Days of Mata Hari, by delving into the arrival in Paris of jazz from America (Scott Joplin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington...) and exploring the influence it had on the French musical landscape (Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy...). By exploring musical influences in both directions, searching for the bridges and points of connection in that period, we both hope to discover what connects us artistically, by celebrating that which touches us all: music as a magical unexplained link. Ultimately, we hope this project will help to blow the dust of obscurity off of some of these Afro-Americans from the 1920s and 1930s and shine the long-overdue light of respect on these ‘American Beauties’."

Luigi De Angelis 

“When Claron McFadden asked me to collaborate on Chez Bricktop, I was immediately impressed by the strong input she had developed with Claire Chevallier. It was a brilliant net of connections between the past and the present, an incredible pulsing journey between their own sensibilities and stories of today resonating and questioning shadows and phantoms of the past. They asked me to recreate the atmosphere of the club of Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith together, while keeping windows open through which they themselves could speak about their own journey and intimate ‘renaissance’, and how they were dealing with those strong forces of the history of jazz and the music that had so strongly influenced their own path into art and music. 

I had the idea to conceive Chez Bricktop as a live radio programme, with Claron McFadden as the presenter, in dialogue with Claire at the piano, and to superimpose the atmosphere of a club of 100 years ago on the structure of a contemporary music broadcasting studio, with live audience all around, live music, guests calling in, etc. The dramaturgy of a music broadcast gives a lot of freedom and the possibility to shift very quickly from present to past, in a kaleidoscopic and immersive journey.” 

Muziektheater Transparant

Claron McFadden

The versatile American soprano Claron McFadden is best known for her interpretations of contemporary music, but is also at home in baroque music and jazz. McFadden has appeared on the largest international opera stages and has performed the title roles of Cavalli's Didone and Berg's Lulu, in addition to roles in creations such as The Time of our Singing by Kris Defoort and prisoner of the state by David Lang. As a resident artist at Muziektheater Transparant, she devised, directed and performed several multidisciplinary projects, such as Lilith, Secrets and Nachtschade: Aubergine. She recently paid tribute to the life and work of Nina Simone in the music theatre production NINA.

Claire Chevallier

Claire Chevallier is a French pianist who, through research and performance, has specialised in historical performance practice from the classical period to French music of the early 20th century. She has also built up a collection of six grand pianos from the period from 1842 to 1920. She has already performed at various international concert halls, including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Salle Pleyel Paris and the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Chevallier is always open to interdisciplinary projects and has contributed to several performances in collaboration with prominent artists such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Josse De Pauw, Jan Decorte, Jan Lauwers and Lisbeth Gruwez.

Luigi De Angelis

Luigi De Angelis is a Belgian-Italian director, scenographer and musician. He founded the company Fanny & Alexander in 1992, which produces projects in which theatre, music, film, visual arts and literature are combined. In his own work he investigates the interaction between music, sound and the theatrical space. His work has been shown at festivals such as the Biennale di Venezia, the Ravenna Festival and the Belgrade International Theatre Festival. De Angelis has directed works such as the operas Die Zauberflöte, Parsifal and Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Since 2015 he has regularly collaborated with Muziektheater Transparant, with whom he created a performance around Sergei Diaghilev for Klarafestival in 2017. 

Chiara Lagani

Chiara Lagani is an Italian actress, playwright and dramatist. In 1992, she founded the company Fanny & Alexander together with Luigi De Angelis, with whom she collaborates in developing the concept and concrete implementation of the projects. As a playwright, she often creates performances based on existing texts, such as Nabokov's Ada, Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend and The Wizard of Oz. Lagani has given workshops, lectures and seminars for actors, playwrights and dramaturges at various locations in Europe, including the KU Leuven, the Université de Rennes, the Sapienza University of Rome, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and the Theaterhogechool Stockholm.

Janelle Gill

Pianist Janelle Gill journeys beyond the boundaries of jazz and heals with sounds. She grew up in Washington, D.C. and attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Howard University. She has worked with musicians such as Delfeyo Marsalis, Oliver Lake, David Murray, The Blackbyrds, Maurice Hines (for Tappin' Through Life), and with local artists such as Marshall Keys, Nasar Abadey and Kris Funn. Gill has performed at the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, at the North Sea Jazz Festival and at the jazz festivals of DC, Montreux and Baku. Recently, she was also musical director for the production Desdemona (Toni Morrison) at the Source Theater. Janelle Gill is also active as a music educator for people from all walks of life.

There are no surtitles. To read the libretto, you can use the app Lyri (downloadable from the App or via Play Store).