Letters to a Young Poet

The great poet Rainer Maria Rilke and Maurice Ravel were exact contemporaries, born in 1875 and writing their masterworks at the same age, just miles away from each other in Paris.

This new program is Bill Barclay's brainchild from Concert Theatre Works (The Chevalier, Secret Byrd, Peer Gynt and others at The Hollywood Bowl, Kennedy Center, Shakespeare's Globe and Broadway).

Bill has dramatized Rilke's feverish correspondence with Ravel and Debussy's string quartets in a totally unique presentation. Two costumed and memorized actors perform with quartet and projections. It had its world premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival in the UK in a sold-out, standing ovation affair.

The letters FROM the young poet, a young Austrian soldier on the verge of suicide, were thought to be lost. They were miraculously discovered during the pandemic in 2020 in what was a massive literary find. They've been retranslated into English by Damion Searls and can be heard aloud for the first time in this production, which is the only staged setting of the letters.

Rilke plumbs the very depths of what it means to be alive - a vital esprit de coer for chamber music. This project is designed to bring new audience members in, offering a theatrical experience that sets it apart from any other chamber music piece touring in the US right now.