“I dreamt of my funeral. We were all there, and I lay dead”. And so starts the latest fantastical show from the creative geniuses at Cirque Du Soleil.
In Corteo (Italian for cortege, a funeral procession), we’re introduced to the clown Mauro as he considers his own death. His ruminations centre on a grand procession in honour of his life featuring his circus friends and family. From these sombre beginnings we’re taken on a parade of physical performances that are beautiful, exciting, funny, touching, gravity-defying and, at times, physically improbable. The roll call of performances is appropriately impressive. Aerial acrobats swinging from giant chandeliers, trampolinists performing on beds, human marionette attached to bungees, teeterboard acrobats, and contortionists. And that’s before the intermission!
Cirque Du Soleil have created a huge market through taking traditional circus staples and visually reinventing them and presenting them through an abstract and fantastical story. In Corteo, their trademark visualisations are in full force. Here we’re transported into a retro-futuristic dreamscape designed by Jean Rabasse that mashes up art deco and steam punk. This is beautifully complemented by Dominique Lemineux’s costumes that mix contemporary Victoriana with the Italian Comedia Dell’arte. The combined effect is a visual spectacle.
The story is less bizarre than most of their previous productions but is abstract enough to have you scratching your head at times. That said, it’s only a framework to showcase the individual performance, so lack of narrative clarity impedes nothing. The other anchor point of any Cirque production is the original music and score, composed by Philippe LeDuc and Maria Bonzanigo that takes us on a parallel journey through time and geography, mixing genres from baroque to flamenco, folk to jazz and all sorts in between. Despite the show being about a funeral procession the music and performances are hugely uplifting and joyous.
Despite being set in the huge O2 arena, in an inspired move, the producers have placed the traditional rectangular stage in the middle of the area, bisecting it. The stage is open back and front so the audience is mirroring one another across the open stage. This makes the audience feel significantly closer to the action and more engaged in the performance.
Corteo is probably Cirque Du Soleil’s most accessible, engaging production in a long time. It’s true to the values and aesthetic of the company, but is livelier, less serious and, overall, more enjoyable than anything they’ve done before.
Runs until 17 July 2022 and then tours
