Multimedia Projects forthe George Enescu Festival
2023
Multimedia Director for Billy Budd, Benjamin Britten
Bucharest
“Billy Budd was sung in English, the audience offered a Romanian translation flashed to the back wall together with natty and illuminating graphics, very stylish complements to the story.“ (Colin Anderson, the editor of Classical Source)
2023
Multimedia Director for Nu Shu, Tan Dun
Bucharest
“The video concept is signed by Yichuan Li, while the rendering for the Palace Hall was made by Carmen Lidia Vidu. I think that, unlike other halls where the symphony was played, here the effect was strongest.
“ (Dana Cristescu,Hotnews)
2021
Multimedia Director for Igor Stravinsky, Les Noces, Renard, The Flood
Bucharest
"Il a conçu pour la soirée suivante un programme exclusivement stravinskien avec rien moins que cinq opus à l’affiche dont le « jeu musical » The Flood (1963) et le ballet Les Noces : un spectacle soutenu par le mécénat privé et incluant une création vidéo de Carmen Lidia Vidu. Rappelons que The Flood (Le Déluge) convoquant la technique sérielle a été créé sur la chaîne CBS qui en avait fait la commande à Stravinsky." (Michèle Tosi, ResMusica.com)
"Um die Arche Noah geht es in Strawinskys Oratorium „The Flood“, mit dem Jurowski sein Gedenkkonzert begann und das zur Reihe von Werken der klassischen Moderne gehört, die nun in Rumänien zum ersten Mal erklangen. Dazu gehörten auch Strawinskys „Renard“ und „Les Noces“, alle konzertant aufgeführt, jedoch spektakulär untermalt mit Videoprojektionen der Multimedia-Regisseurin Carmen Lidia Vidu ."
2021
Multimedia Director for José Cura, Modus, Te Deum, Ecce Homo
Bucharest
"Fostul tenor José Cura, devenit între timp compositor, a fost și la pupitrul orchestrei. Am ales doar lucrarea Ecce Homo (Triptychum: Magnificat; Calvarium; Stabat Mater). Poate că cel mai bine ar fi fost să fie lumea în sală pentru că, vizualul realizat de Carmen Lidia Vidu, aș spune, a fost cheia înțelegerii lucrării. Nu știu ce s-a văzut în transmisia on line, dar dacă proiectorul nu era conectat la mixer, înseamnă că nu s-a văzut nimic. Lucrarea e scrisă când la noi încă mai bântuia comunismul, 1989, și are încărcătura mistică a unor lucrări precum Stabat Mater, dar proiectată pe condiția umană, tangibilă. Disperare și speranță, credință și dragoste. Lucrarea a beneficiat și de o interpretare de excepție"( Dana Cristescu, HotNews.ro)
2021
Multimedia Director for Alexander von Zemlinsky, Der Zwerg
Bucharest
"It is coming up to the centenary of Der Zwerg, Alexander Zemlinsky’s one-acter about an obnoxious Infanta who spends her birthday toying with the affections (and ultimately the life) of an unlovely dwarf. The fallacy of the ‘autonomous’ musical work notwithstanding, one advantage of doing this opera in concert was a de-emphasizing of its semi-biographical aspects, which directors of recent productions have been inescapably drawn to. As thought-provoking as it may be for a director like Tobias Kratzer to dig deep into the Zemlinsky/Dwarf and Alma Schindler/Infanta parallels (as he did two years ago in Berlin), they needn’t necessarily be present and Carmen Lidia Vidu’s whimsical video projections quite consciously avoided them. Her flood of relentlessly ‘cute’ images – nearly all in lollipop pink and showing things like the infanta from Velázquez’s Las Meninas at a pool party – was knocking on the door of Japanese kawaii culture, which may sound at odds with the dramatic content and music of Der Zwerg but turned out a perverse stroke of genius. The more the wacky bubblegum visuals insisted that this was just another regular fairytale, the more the mind revolted in the face of the story’s astonishing cruelty." (Seb Smallshaw, Seen and Heard International)
2019
Multimedia Director for Die Frau ohne Schatten
Bucharest
As is now customary in these Bucharest concert performances, the multimedia director Carmen Lidia Vidu supplied a clever backdrop of graphics: the animation might at times have looked Pythonesque, but even its wit was rooted in the meaning of the work, and the way in which Vidu played with ideas and images going right back to the original costumes evoked a world in which ‘Übermächte’ were still very much ‘im Spiel’.
JOHN ALLISON, editor-in-chief Opera magazine
JOHN ALLISON, editor-in-chief Opera magazine
2019
Multimedia Director for Peter Grimes
Bucharest
I have drawn the entire film of the opera frame by frame. There are at least 500 drawings transformed into 500 short films that I will present to the tempo of conductor Paul Daniel. Moreover, we have tried to draw the characters according to the cast that will be present in the Enescu Festival. Illustrator Gabi Skinder has made tremendous work, and Julien Javions is the one who transformed the drawings into a film.
I grew up by the Danube, among fishermen. A mix of Romanians and Serbians. I, a child, they, people of the water. The houses in Gornea village are terraced. We were sharing a wall with the village pub. I remember the publican’s big dogs, the two ‘loose’ girls across the street, the killing of a young man and many more things that I can’t tell, but that are part of my biography and of Peter Grimes.
2017
Multimedia director for Mathis der Maler
Bucharest
The highlight of these Palace concerts had come when Festival stalwart Lawrence Foster conducted a concert performance of Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler. That the premise of an artist caught between social and creative action, in the midst of cultural upheaval, is as relevant today as it was eighty or indeed 380 years ago can hardly be gainsaid. This comparatively rare opportunity to hear complete an opera as ranks with the finest of the past century was its own justification and the present account did not disappoint.
Carmen Lidia Vidu’s multimedia backdrop – incorporating English synopses of each tableau into its interplay of Mathis Grünewald’s artwork with abstract visuals – enhanced the music without distracting from it. The audience thinned out by the close, but this remained a vindication of Foster’s belief in a significant opera and also the Enescu Festival for having made it possible.
(Richard Whitehouse, Classical Source)
Carmen Lidia Vidu’s multimedia backdrop – incorporating English synopses of each tableau into its interplay of Mathis Grünewald’s artwork with abstract visuals – enhanced the music without distracting from it. The audience thinned out by the close, but this remained a vindication of Foster’s belief in a significant opera and also the Enescu Festival for having made it possible.
(Richard Whitehouse, Classical Source)
2017
Multimedia director for Oedipe
Bucharest
L'opéra "Oedipe" de Georges Enesco, habillé en spectacle multimédia et interprété par l'orchestre philharmonique de Londres, a été ovationné à Bucarest, en ouverture d'un festival dédié au compositeur roumain.
Le maestro russe Vladimir Jurowski et les artistes ont été applaudis debout des minutes durant.
Des projections vidéo (Carmen Lidia Vidu) sur écran géant on rythmé cette tragédie lyrique sur un livret original en français d'Edmond Fleg, dont la première a eu lieu en 1936 à l'opéra Garnier de Paris.
"L'idée de créer une atmosphère autour de la musique, sans toutefois laisser l'image prévaloir, a appartenu à M. Jurowski", a déclaré à l'AFP Mihai Constantinescu, directeur exécutif du festival.
"Les spectateurs ne sont pas distraits par les décors et les costumes, mais se retrouvent transportés en Grèce antique par l'utilisation de la technologie moderne", a-t-il ajouté.
Chef d'orchestre principal de la Philharmonie de Londres depuis 2007 et directeur artistique du festival, Vladimir Jurowski, 45 ans, a expliqué avoir cherché une conception innovante en "introduisant des éléments de théâtre" dans cette oeuvre qu'il considère comme "l'un des sommets de l'opéra du XXe siècle".
Le maestro a rendu hommage à la metteuse en scène roumaine Carmen Lidia Vidu pour les projections vidéo, "simples mais belles", qu'elle a conçues.
"Le but était d'emmener le spectateur dans un voyage musical et visuel", a déclaré Mme Carmen Lidia Vidu à l'AFP. "J'ai essayé de démythifier Enesco, de le regarder non pas comme un titan mais comme un homme qui se confesse à moi", a-t-elle ajouté.
( Agence France-Presse)
Le maestro russe Vladimir Jurowski et les artistes ont été applaudis debout des minutes durant.
Des projections vidéo (Carmen Lidia Vidu) sur écran géant on rythmé cette tragédie lyrique sur un livret original en français d'Edmond Fleg, dont la première a eu lieu en 1936 à l'opéra Garnier de Paris.
"L'idée de créer une atmosphère autour de la musique, sans toutefois laisser l'image prévaloir, a appartenu à M. Jurowski", a déclaré à l'AFP Mihai Constantinescu, directeur exécutif du festival.
"Les spectateurs ne sont pas distraits par les décors et les costumes, mais se retrouvent transportés en Grèce antique par l'utilisation de la technologie moderne", a-t-il ajouté.
Chef d'orchestre principal de la Philharmonie de Londres depuis 2007 et directeur artistique du festival, Vladimir Jurowski, 45 ans, a expliqué avoir cherché une conception innovante en "introduisant des éléments de théâtre" dans cette oeuvre qu'il considère comme "l'un des sommets de l'opéra du XXe siècle".
Le maestro a rendu hommage à la metteuse en scène roumaine Carmen Lidia Vidu pour les projections vidéo, "simples mais belles", qu'elle a conçues.
"Le but était d'emmener le spectateur dans un voyage musical et visuel", a déclaré Mme Carmen Lidia Vidu à l'AFP. "J'ai essayé de démythifier Enesco, de le regarder non pas comme un titan mais comme un homme qui se confesse à moi", a-t-elle ajouté.
( Agence France-Presse)
