This piece of music-theatre arises out of a fascination for the violent Salo, Pasolini’s last film.

Pasolini’s murder shortly after release of this film is not an issue.
Intra-muros shows Pasolini directing his last film, a Pasolini whom we know has not much longer to live, a Pasolini who wants to let fly a merciless artistic uppercut at the corrupt Italy of the seventies.
In an empty room with a fascist air to it we see eight young musicians (the double string quartet); they are the adolescents who were abducted by the Mussolini guard of the northern Italian state of Salo which declared its independence in 1944. They are the children of leftist intellectuals who will have to suffer the vengeance of the bankrupt fascism. A Greek tragedy divided into blood-soaked cycles.
In addition to these adolescents there is the actress with the double role of Pasolini’s mother and the prostitute who has to tell spicy stories in Salo, and who commits suicide, knowing what fate is in store for the adolescents. The young countertenor represents the paedophilic and homosexual love that fundamentally marked Pasolini’s whole life. At the same time he is also  Guido, the younger brother who, at the end of the Second World War, is murdered by a rival resistance group.
Ultimately the actor of course plays the director Pasolini, the commentator on his own work.
The script is composed of passages from the Marquis de Sade (sung in Italian) and newly-written material (spoken in English).
The musicians will play their instruments in such a way that their posture is distorted. The electronics that surround the audience represent an alienating collective memory. The naive figures from the trilogia della vita who trip through life appear alongside the tragic seriousness of the characters of Salo who are destined to die.

Credits

  • Text • Peter Verhelst
  • Scenography • Jan Versweyveld
  • Adolescents • BL!NDMAN [4x4] strings (Vincent Hepp, Pieter Jansen, Kris Hellemans, Romek Maniewski) / BL!NDMAN [4x4] voice (Iris Luypaers, Dick Van Daele, Thomas Van Lede)
  • Guidalberto • Jonathan De Ceuster
  • Susanna • Kitty Courbois
  • Pier Paolo • 
  • Composition | Direction • Eric Sleichim