Abstract
Ian McEwan, born in 1948, is one of the most important voices in contemporary English literature. In his successful 2001 novel Atonement, he tells of a life spent atoning for an early debt. Through a deliberate false statement, Briony Tallis, a pubescent, overzealous writer in 1930s England, puts her older sister’s unfit lover in prison and destroys the lives and loves of two people.
Atonement, or in German, Abbitte, is a word that’s rarely used in either language. At the same time, the humble request for forgiveness is a deeply human act, a testament to great remorse and self-conquest. Although she helps the two lovers in a novel to achieve the happiness that was not granted to them in life, Briony Tallis fails to obtain forgiveness for her grave offense. Her feeling of guilt accompanies her to the end of her life. McEwan’s novel is more than a tragic love story set against a contemporary historical background. Through the terrible consequences of a single lie, it not only exposes the mechanisms of the British class system, but also reflects on the dangerous side of artistic creativity and questions the morality of writing.
In her first new creation for the Ballett Zürich, Cathy Marston and her longtime artistic partner Edward Kemp transfer the action of Atonement to the world of ballet. In their adaptation, Briony Tallis becomes a celebrated choreographer who attempts to come to terms with the fateful transgressions of her youth in her dance pieces. With her large-scale narrative ballet, Cathy Marston reflects on the minor and major self-deceptions that shape our memories, and on the difficulty of dealing with guilt – the guilt of others, but especially our own.
The music for Atonement was commissioned from the renowned English composer Laura Rossi. Jonathan Lo, music director of the Australian Ballet, will conduct the Philharmonia Philharmonia Zürich.
