The Swallow (Jebi)

"The swallow", a music theatre piece by Lee Youn-taek, who is probably the best-known director in Korea, deals with reappraising the past. The crimes committed during the Japanese occupation are shifted to the 17th century and presented within the context of a tragic love story. The piece is presented in the form of a Changgeuk, a type of Korean music theatre that combines epic solo singing, acting and narration. Lee Youn-taek also experiments with Japanese and Western images and sounds.

'"Regarding my passionate efforts with this mise-en-scène: with 'Swallow', I wanted to do for Korean music theatre what Puccini’s 'Madame Butterfly' did for Western opera." (Lee Youn-taek)

At the beginning of the 17th century, following the Japanese invasion, the wife of Korean soldier Yi is considered missing. When he travels through Japan, however, he finds her again. She is now married to a Samurai, to whom she was presented by a general. The woman, torn between the husband she loves in Korea and her new family in Japan, finally takes her life at the end of this tragic love story.

As a spectator one is “overwhelmed by the sheer sensuousness, severity and fury of this work … One suddenly understands again why Brecht was so fascinated by Asian theatre; he found it an incredibly brilliant gripping spectacle, and it served him as the original model of “epic” stage art’ (Gerhard R. Koch on the première in Seoul, FAZ newspaper 20 Nov. 2004). Director Lee Youn Taek and his main performer, the famous Pansori singer Ahn Sook-sun, who is extremely popular in Korea, chose Changgeuk, a form of Korean music theatre, for the mis en scène. Changgeuk is based on Pansori, an ancient art of singing that combines epic solo vocals, acting and narration. At the same time, Lee Youn-taek experiments with Japanese and Western images and sounds, which is one of the main reasons why the piece is being so controversially discussed in Korea, where the painful memories of the Japanese occupation during the Second World War are still very much alive.

Director’s note

Biography Lee Youn Taek

A short glossary of Korean musical instruments

Within the framework of the Asia-Pacific Weeks, which are supported by the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin (DKLB).