Le sang noir (opera)
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| Title: | The black blood |
| Original title: | Le sang noir |
| Shape: | Opera in three acts |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | François Fayt |
| Libretto : | Marcel Maréchal |
| Literary source: | Louis Guilloux : Le sang noir or Cripure |
| Premiere: | November 29, 2014 |
| Place of premiere: | Theater Erfurt |
| Playing time: | about 2 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | a Breton port city, 1917 |
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Le sang noir (Eng .: The Black Blood ) is an opera in three acts by François Fayt . The text by Marcel Maréchal is based on the dramatization of the novel of the same name by the author Louis Guilloux, published in 1935 . The world premiere took place on November 29, 2014 at the Erfurt Theater in a German text version by Klaus Gronau.
The opera is set in a Breton port city in 1917 and depicts the last day in the life of the philosophy teacher François Merlin, who is derisively referred to as "Cripure" because of his preference for Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (French: Critique de la raison pure ). Its fate serves to illustrate the devastating effects of the First World War on people far away from the front and thus denounce chauvinistic and reactionary thinking.
content
first act
A port city in Brittany in 1917.
The philosophy teacher François Merlin, mockingly called Cripure by most, ponders his life. In addition to everyday school life, he works on his literary life's work, The Experiment on Human Shame or The Progress of Disease . Cripure is still suffering from the fact that his wife Toinette left him 20 years ago. He now lives - although wealthy - with Maia, a former prostitute, in simple circumstances. His illegitimate son Amédée has been on vacation with his father and is about to go back to battle. Another young man, Lucien Bourcier, had said goodbye to Cripure the day before because he had decided to leave it all behind. The next day he will set sail for Russia with the “Albatros” to join the revolution there.
Cripure dreams of breaking out too, but he doesn't dare and instead finds himself forced to dress up for a medal at school. He receives a visit from a former student who also has to go back to the front. He delivers a letter from Cripure's friend and colleague Moka warning him that students tampered with his bike. Cripure is appalled and suspects his spiteful colleague and neighbor Nabucet to be behind the planned attack. On the street, Nabucet explains to a war invalid and his nurse that he thinks Cripure is a traitor to the country. Cripure sadly accompanies his son to the train station. The occasional poet appears in front of the café and convinced Patriot Babinot and first tries to impose his fatherland poems on the waiter Marcel. When a group of war-weary vacationers from the front comes by and he wants to present them with his poems, an argument breaks out and Babinot is injured in the eye.
Second act
While the award ceremony is going on in the background, Babinot comes and tells a tale of lies about his eye injury. He told the general that he had met German spies and named Cripure as a witness. The headmaster appears and tells Cripure that his son is threatened with execution for mutiny. To prevent this from happening, he has to get to Paris as soon as possible. Cripure accompanies him to the train station. When the two come to the train station, their way is blocked because of a rebellion of departing soldiers. The headmaster tries desperately to get to the platform. Suddenly, in the general commotion, Nabucet also appears and insults the mutineers. Cripure slaps him on the face.
Third act
Cripure has received a duel demand from Nabucet. He prevents Maia from going to Nabucet because of it. Then comes Moka, who negotiated an honorable settlement for Cripure. At first Cripure refuses to give his consent, but finally he lets himself be changed. When he returns home after a short walk, he sees that his dogs have torn up the only manuscript of his book. He then shoots himself in front of Maia's eyes.
Work history
The French libretto for the opera was written by Marcel Maréchal . It is based on the 1935 novel Le sang noir by Louis Guilloux and its 1962 theatrical version Cripure , created by Guilloux himself . Maréchal shortened the theater text, but did not change the plot or the constellation of the characters. At the premiere in Erfurt, the opera was played in a German translation by Klaus Gronau .
The world premiere took place on November 29, 2014 in the Great House of the Erfurt Theater. Máté Sólyom-Nagy (Cripure / Le Monsieur / Der Spiegel), Katja Bildt (Maia), Marwan Shamiyeh (Étienne / Moka), Daniela Gerstenmeyer (The Nurse), Jörg Rathmann (Nabucet), Reinhard Becker (Ein Soldat / Der General), Salomón Zulic del Canto (Amédée), Juri Batukov (Babinot), Nils Stäfe (Glâtre), Gregor Loebel (The Bishop / The Headmaster), Mark Pohl (The War Victim), Klaus Heydenbluth (Marcel / Sergeant), Fernando Blumenthal (The mayor / A farmer) and Markus Weckesser (parrot). Jean-Paul Penin conducted the Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra . Directed by Marc Adam. The equipment came from Hank Irwin Kittel, the lighting from Torsten Bante, the sound design from André Dion and the dramaturgy from Arne Langer.
layout
Jean-Paul Penin , the conductor of the world premiere, pointed out in the program booklet the “astonishing mixture [...] of bel canto lines and compositional styles that are close to the repertoire of musical theater” and compared Le sang noir with Offenbach's stories by Hoffmann . Typical for the composer François Fayt are also “refined, solo instrumental colors”, an extreme range of vocal lines with large jumps and a harmony that is not based on harmonic centers. In Le sang noir he succeeds "with a few notes, a very simple harmony, with a great economy in orchestration from the darkest to the happiest". The emotions are expressed through “simplicity, transparency, transparency, harmonic and contrapuntal refinement”.
Since the libretto is based directly on Guilloux's theatrical version, there is no additional recourse to the text of the novel by choirs or ensemble movements. The character of the work is that of a chamber play. The song of the Russian internees performed behind the scene also occurs in the play. The place and period of the action are strictly limited, as envisaged by traditional French theater aesthetics. However, unlike most French operas, there is neither a choir nor a ballet.
Web links
- The black blood at Theater Erfurt ( Memento from June 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- Video teaser for the world premiere on Vimeo
- Video excerpt from the Erfurt premiere on YouTube
- Udo Pacolt: ERFURT: THE BLACK BLOOD “literary opera” by François Fayt. Performance review of the world premiere in Neuer Merker
- Hanns-Peter Mederer: The melancholy left by the war. Performance review of the world premiere on amusio.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c program booklet The Black Blood. Theater Erfurt, season 2014/2015.
- ↑ a b Arne Langer: Individual fate or social panorama? The literary opera The Black Blood. In: Program The Black Blood. Theater Erfurt, 2014/2015 season, p. 21f.
- ^ Jean-Paul Penin: The music of François Fayt. In: Program The Black Blood. Theater Erfurt, 2014/2015 season, p. 13f.