Les Brigittines

Ten museum wardens are shut into the galleries at night and become engulfed by the paintings of Goya that they see all day. Gradually, their reference points disintegrate, and their connection with reality takes on bizarre forms. Elucubrations, phantasmagoria, deaf manipulation and outbursts are the only possible responses to the predicted debacle.

Goya – who was the first painter at the Spanish court – had forsaken his social ambitions when he painted his Black Paintings, in which he compassionately and fiercely humorously contemplates the throes of war, the abuses of the Inquisition and the foolishness of power. Haunted by these paintings, the bodies rise up, fall apart and play with gravity, like those figures sitting in the void, battles lost in advance, dislocated royal portraits.

Inspired by the songs and dances of the time, The Great He-Goat also allows us to “hear” the paintings, the vocal content, getting as close as possible to their tonality to bring out their underlying intentions.