Projects
1973
Original version
Image-memory:“I remember this evening in April. It was in 1973. As always, my sister and I had been waiting for this moment since weeks. Finally it was starting and we could dream. Like us, millions of television viewers had their eyes glued to the television screen. It was the most important evening of the year. It was time for the Eurovision Singing Contest. We were Italians born in Switzerland. And in this contest our hearts were of course beating for the Italian competitor. But that night, things happened differently: I was stupefied by the performance of the Swiss competitor. A young man, tall and with long blond hair, was singing. He was young and seemed so at ease. Even though he was Swiss. He didn’t look like the people I crossed in the small town of Ecublens near Lausanne. He looked happy.”
The Eurovision Singing Contest (first edition in Lugano in 1956) was - during the 70s - one of the rare moments which united the best singers for variety shows. The contest evolved according to an immutable presentation ritual: one singer per country was selected to interpret a song, accompanied by an orchestra. The orchestra was of course one of the main elements of such evenings. Its’ function was to accompany the singer, but it also presented a certain splendour. Varity shows were barely starting at the time and it was a rarity to see singers on a television set. These were only the beginnings of music and singing on television.
The Eurovision Contest was also particular in the field of television in that it was international. It was broadcast live from the host country - which changed each year - to the other countries. The ceremony was spectacular: the orchestra, impressive stage design, both host and the public in formal dress. Each country had its own national commentator, linked by telephone from his commentary box. The double commentary was both strange and fascinating: the mysterious voice of the invisible Swiss commentator was superposed on that of the live commentator in order to provide the specific information on the proceedings of the evening and biographical information on the competitors.
The Eurovision Competition had a certain importance and prestige for the participating countries. The information was treated seriously and with reverence. It was maybe the most viewed programme, not only by national but also European audiences. Although today these competitions disappear in the midst of fifty daily variety shows, although they have slowly lost their meaning - because television, music and communication have changed and the contest is left with its pathetic aspect (today, participating in a contest is rather considered a failure in the career of a musician) - for generations such as ours, it represents a memory filled with emotion which brings us back to a time prior to the contemporary saturation of the media. There were only few shows at the time and every single one seemed precious to us.
The Eurovision Competition failed to renew itself in its overall functioning. Nonetheless, since a few years, numerous shows have been inspired by it, in that they focus on the question of the prizewinner. In these television shows, the question of the elimination and the election of the winner is central.
Original version
This project may be understood as a musical comedy, as a project on the question of popular music but also as a manifesto.
We are already in touch with different potential co-producers in order to realise this large-scale project. To date, and regarding the budget necessary to realise a “real size” and faithful reproduction of the 1973 event, we are not yet strong enough. We aim for live transmission of the project on television (Arte for example) at the middle of the night. We would like a certain number of partner European theatres or other stage structures to transmit the entire event, live, in a location of their choice.
In the process, we hope to bring together the main European or national cultural actors around a project which seems at first completely burlesque. The project may take a European, francophone, or Franco-Swiss dimension, depending on the interest it will arouse. Depending on the final form, we will contact national theatre companies, national, French, or European, who each will perform a country.
This project thus involves strong production locations, capable of supporting, organizing, and managing a project of such a scale. We have good relations with Wiener Festwochen, the Theater der Welt, or the Festival d’Avignon for example.
Some of these structures are already interested in the project. We have yet to present it to others.
Imagining that this project is realised, that we manage to bring together some of the main actors of the European scene of research theatre, the performance would, through it’s simultaneously comical and improbable symbolic, also be a manifesto for contemporary creation.
Description
Our only working material is the recording of the Eurovision Singing Competition which occurred on the 7th of April 1973 at Luxembourg’s “théâtre Municipal du Grand-Duché”, was produced by the radio-television of Luxembourg, and was presented by the famous Helga Guitton.
From there, our objective is to reconstitute the evening as faithfully as possible at all levels: costumes, scenery, music, singing, presentation,…
Each invited company will interpret one competitor. There are 17 countries: Finland, Belgium, Portugal, Norway, Monaco, Spain, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, Italy, Sweden, Holland, Ireland and Israel.
Approximately 70 performers for all the countries.
To these one must add the orchestra comprising approximately 30 people and all the staff which accompanies the event (presentator, president of the jury, composer,…)
One single exception: we wish to ask Patrick Juvet to participate. He would perform his role once again.
36 years later, the public would view a reproduction -the most faithful as possible- of the 1973 competition.
Underlying issues:
The central issue of the project is that of memory and oblivion. It brings to the forefront an event that our generation - born in the 1960-70s - has kept in memory. It revives a specific relation with what was then television. Thus it questions both collective memory - that of the specific context of Europe in the Pop years and its forms of representation (images, costumes, music, choreography) - and a more individual memory - the evocation of the event that Eurovision represented may take us back to our own story, or listening to a specific song may revive a particular memory. We know how important a vector of memory music is.
With this work one discovers that a process is set in motion, that memory is activated, but that in the same movement oblivion emerges. One no longer remembers competitors, since most did not leave their mark on the history of singing! One has forgotten the ceremonial characteristic of television at the time, how slow, sober and serious the show was. All seems suddenly far removed, fading.
Like other projects by Massimo Furlan, the project 1973 follows the tradition of the re-enactment. With Number 10 or Number 23, the performance is related to the history of football, a specific match. Here the project is to re-enact as faithfully as possible a whole television show. To perform once again a historic event, a singing contest, an evening in April 1973. A piece of time re-emerges and offers a precise scenario. The re-enactment is the embodiment of a specific event by a collective. Though the event is interpreted on stage and on television as faithfully as possible it is not identical to the original. The actors have changed - a part from Patrick Juvet, but even he has been marked by the 36 years which have passed. It is no longer the same period or context. History may be re-enacted but it never repeats its self. There is a gap between the original and the copy, which in interesting in a number of respects: it puts into question the history of television and music, it is inscribed in the history of representations. But most of all, through its re-enactment, the initial television event - the Eurovision Competition - becomes a musical and acquires an artistic status. It becomes a collective project.