It was probably fated they would meet. Aren’t Stravinsky’s "Rite of Spring" and flamenco dance both rooted in soil riddled with the stamping of feet? Nijinsky had imagined a pagan rite that hammers the ground to wake nature after the winter. And flamenco is in and of itself an art of warmth, rhythm, hope, and a certain terror. The famous score is played here on two pianos by Cory Smythe and Sylvie Courvoisier, who is also a composer and the artistic architect of this Consagración. Indeed, Courvoisier composed "Spectro" for the second part, distilling the oneiric or nightmarish quality of Stravinsky’s work and reinforcing the long-standing artistic bond between these two freethinkers, revealed in 2010 thanks to their shared duende in the unforgettable "La Curva".

Thomas Hahn