In Search of Lost Time's "Love's Delusion"
''Peeling the parameters of the grand delusion
Christine Madden The Irish Times 25. September 2004
Photo - Reto Andreoli
In Love's Delusion, an accessible 'collage' of media and artists, literature and music share the stage as equals, writes Christine Madden
We've all been deluded by love. Many artists fashion their work out of this deceptive haze that spares no one in its intensity and pain. It's a subject that never fails to find resonance in the public, partly because passion demands powerful expression, partly because everyone has experienced this the addictive drug that no one ever fully stops craving.
A promising topic, then, with which to build an audience for a fresh mix of art forms. Love's Delusion, a collaboration of artists and media allows both literature and music to fill the stage as equals, each complementing the other, with neither present purely as back-up. Conceived by violinist Gwendolyn Masin, the production includes the talents of director Paddy Kelly, pianist Julia Bartha and actors Donal Courtney and John O'Donoghue.
Masin's programme brings together works by writers Marcel Proust and Leo Tolstoy with those of César Franck and Ludwig van Beethoven. This 'collage', as she describes it, investigates our willingness to allow passion to cloud our reason, but also sets out particularly to make classical music and literature more accessible to a broader public."