Un Requiem allemand by David Bobée

Johannes Brahms
Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem)
Johann Sebastian Bach
Chorales
Johannes Brahms
Organ chorales — Marienlieder

Eleanor Lyons, soprano
John Brancy, baritone
accentus
Insula orchestra
Laurence Equilbey, conductor
David Bobée, stage direction
David Bobée and Léa Jézéquel, scenography
Mayuko Tsukiji and Samuel Bobée, costumes
Wojtek Doroszuk, video
Franck Krawczyk, musical arrangements

Brahms sings of humanity, and David Bobée gives it a face. After Beethoven’s Fidelio in 2022, the stage director reunites with Laurence Equilbey and Insula orchestra for Ein deutsches Requiem. He imagines a striking staging, marked by the visual power of a smoking airplane fuselage crashed to the ground, where today’s concerns — collective mourning, memory, peace — echo through the dark romanticism of Brahms.

A sacred but non-liturgical work, this “human requiem” — universal before religious — is performed by Insula orchestra on period instruments with the accentus choir. The performance is also accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences, with a sign singer integrated into the staging throughout.

Performances in January 2026 at La Seine Musicale.
Photos © Julien Benhamou.