Until 2nd June, the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya will be performing ‘Letter to a Man’ with director Robert Wilson and the legendary ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. The show is based on the famous diaries of Vàtslav Nijinski, published in 1936, which focus on the fragmented mind of this great dance artist as he went crazy, losing touch with reality. As in all of Wilson’s works, movement, text, light, scenography and music all play an equal role…the music by Hai Willner contextualises the intriguing nature of this theatrical piece through fragments of audio with music by Tom Wait, Arvo Pärt. Henry Mancini and the Soviet composer Alexander Mosolov.

More information about Letter to a Man

The show starts with Mikhai Baryshnikov who plays the tormented ballet dancer in Budapest in 1945. His wife and himself find refuge with her family. The show is contextualised during the last few weeks of the Second World War, where the battles between the German and Russian soldiers spread violently through the streets.

The mental health of Nijinski begins to deteriorate in Switzerland towards the end of the First World War. His diaries are an extraordinary testament to his fight against going crazy, and to understand what is happening to him. When he stopped writing in his diary, he completely shut himself off for more than two decades, always under the care of his wife. But when another European catastrophe reached its end, it seemed that this great artist came back to life again…