How To Jolt An Audience
THOMAS: Why “Clavigo”? PETIT: I wanted to do a story that would carry me away. “Clavigo” is Faust, the first piece written by Goethe, when he was 25 years old. It’s a strong theme, one of the greatest of all time, with God, Lucifer, the planets–it’s amazing. I grabbed hold of it, and immediately thought of using paintings of the period and Beethoven. But then I thought, “That’s impossible. It will feel so old and musty....