L'écume des jours (opera)

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Opera dates
Title: The foam of the days
Original title: L'écume des jours
Shape: Drame lyrique in three acts
Original language: French
Music: Edisson Denisow
Libretto : Edisson Denisow
Literary source: Boris Vian:
L'écume des jours
Premiere: March 15, 1986
Place of premiere: Opéra-Comique , Paris
Playing time: approx. 2 ¼ hours
Place and time of the action: Paris, 1940s
people
  • Colin ( tenor )
  • Chloé, his wife ( soprano )
  • Chick, her friend (tenor)
  • Nicolas, Colin's servant ( bass )
  • Alise, his niece ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Isis (soprano)
  • Mangemanche, a doctor (bass)
  • Coriolan (bass)
  • Pégase (tenor)
  • Seneschal (tenor)
  • The director of an arms factory ( baritone )
  • Jesus (baritone)
  • A priest (tenor)
  • The girl (child's voice)
  • The Mouse (actor)
  • The pangolin (actor)
  • The pharmacist (actor)
  • The cat (actor)
  • Police officers, guests, passers-by, people ( choir )

L'écume des jours (German: The foam of the days ) is an opera (original name: "drame lyrique") in three acts , fourteen pictures and seven intermezzi by Edisson Denissow with its own libretto based on Boris Vian's novel L'écume des jours . It was composed in 1981. However, it was not premiered until March 15, 1986 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.

action

The following table of contents is based on the information in the opera guides by Heinz Wagner and Ulrich Schreiber as well as the website of the Stuttgart State Theater and the subtitles of the Stuttgart video recording.

first act

1st picture. The wealthy bon vivant Colin is expecting his friend Chick, a poor engineer, for dinner. He talks to a mouse who lives in his household about his money problems. His newly hired chef Nicolas, a student of the famous Gouffé, introduces him to the menu, an eel pate. After Chick arrives, Colin introduces him to Nicolas. It turns out that the cook is Chick's friend Alise's uncle. Alise studied philosophy - a fact Nicolas would prefer to keep quiet. Colin tells Chick about his "piano cocktail". This is a piano with which he can mix cocktails. Each button corresponds to a specific ingredient. The mixing ratios result from the length of the note and the playing style. He can add a beaten egg with the forte pedal and ice with the piano pedal. Chick tries it out immediately to mix two glasses of “Solitude”. Nicolas then serves the pie and explains how he cleverly fished the eel out of his cold water pipe with the help of a pineapple. Chick says that he met Alise at a lecture by the philosopher Jean-Sol Partre, whom he admired. He invites Colin to their next meeting on the rink. Colin wants to come with Nicolas and hopes that Nicolas will bring more nieces with him.

Intermezzo 1. Colin dreams of meeting a girl the next day.

2nd picture. Chick introduces Colin to his girlfriend Alise. The two get along straight away. Nicolas appears with his friend Isis, who invites everyone to the birthday party of her poodle Dupont. After an accident on the ice rink, a priest and eight cleaning people restore order.

Intermezzo 2. Colin dreams of love.

3rd picture. Chick and Alise argue at Isis' party. Her parents disagree with the penniless chick because he spends all of his money on his Partre collection. Isis introduces them to the beautiful Chloé, with whom Colin immediately falls in love. It bears the name of a Duke Ellington foxtrot that they both love.

4th picture. Colin and Chloé have made a date for a rendezvous. Colin is unsure where to go with her. You decide to go for a window walk. Chloé does not like the suggestive pictures and propaganda material exhibited there. They go to the park, where a pink cloud envelops them and they kiss for the first time.

Second act

Colin dreams of his wedding to Chloé.

5th picture. Chloé, Alise, Isis and the two twin brothers Pégase and Coriolan, who were invited as “honorary pederasts”, are preparing for Colin and Chloé's wedding.

Intermezzo 3. All kinds of people come to Colin and Chloé's wedding, including Jesus.

6th picture. With Nicolas as the chauffeur, Colin and Chloé go on their honeymoon. The path leads them through an area with copper mines, where they talk about the sad but well-paid lives of the workers. A strange pangolin approaches them. Colin thinks it's a maintenance worker in protective clothing.

7th picture. Back at home, Chloé complains of chest pain - a first sign of her illness. The mouse injured itself while cleaning the tiles in the hallway. Colin puts on a Duke Ellington record. The doctor Mangemanche appears to examine Chloé. At first he raves about the advantages of his black and yellow clothes, which among other things protect him from being run over. When he eavesdrop on Chloé, he notices "strange music" in her lungs. He prescribes her medication and advises her to listen to other music. He recommends "Slap Happy".

Intermezzo 4.

8th picture. Colin and Chick go to the pharmacist to get Chloé's medicine. The pharmacist, a kind of “overworked rabbit” without the “chemical part of digestion”, immediately starts making it by consuming “chrome-plated carrots”. Colin explains to his friend that Chloé has a "water lily" in his right lung. The doctor had advised her to go to the mountains, where the cold would heal her. In addition, she must always surround herself with flowers to prevent the water lily from multiplying. Colins has already used up all of his fortune to buy the flowers. He is now looking for a job. The pharmacist has now completed the drug. He warns of an overdose. Chick still has no money for a wedding with Alise because he has put Colin's donations into his Partre collection. Nevertheless, he hopes not to lose Alise, as she also loves Jean-Sol Partre.

9th picture. Colin reads to Chloé from Tristan and Isolde . The water lily was operated on from its lungs, but now the other lung is also affected. Colin is still looking for a job to make money for the flowers. Chloé remembers a letter she wrote him about her cure in the mountains and the “snow moles” there.

Third act

10th picture. Colin applies to the director of a weapons factory. When he tells him about his wife's illness, he gets the job. The director explains to him the manufacturing process of the gun barrels, for which “first-class raw materials” and “selected seeds” are required. In order to hatch the seeds with "human warmth", Colin has to lie on the ground for 24 hours.

11th picture. Alise comes to visit. Chick broke up with her because he needed all his money for his Partre collection. Colin also sold everything - even the piano cocktail. Alise regrets not having met Colin earlier. She could have fallen in love with him then.

Intermezzo 5. Eight policemen appear, led by a seneschal, and search the apartment to collect taxes.

12th picture. Since they cannot find any money, the policemen hold themselves harmless on Jean-Sol Partre's books. They beat the protesting chick to death.

Intermezzo 6. Alise blames Partre for Chicks and their misfortune. She wants to kill him and burn his books. She, too, lost her life in the library fire.

13th picture. Chloé succumbed to her illness. At the funeral a priest refers to the resurrection of the dead. Jesus washes his hands “in innocence”. The mouse lights the grave lights.

Intermezzo 7. A girl sings about the neglected life in a side street.

14th picture. Epilogue. After Chloé's death, Colin became completely apathetic. The mouse can no longer watch this. She persuades a cat to kill her. To do this, she has to put her head in the cat's mouth and wait for someone to step on the tail in order to trigger the necessary reflex. A group of blind girls from a boarding school wanders across the stage, singing about eternal life.

layout

The libretto is linguistically based on Vian's book. It describes the human emptiness in a way of life completely oriented towards freedom and egoism. Like the novel, it is characterized by absurdities and puns, such as the name of the philosopher “Jean-Sol Partre” or the “honorary pederast” instead of “honorary maidens”.

For the jazz- inspired parts of the text, Denissow also used jazz elements in the music. For this he used typical jazz instruments such as saxophones, electric guitars, drums and piano. Duke Ellington's recordings also appear in the original book. His trumpet melody Chloe, recorded from the tape, plays a special role . In his article on Grove Music Online, Detlef Gojowy pointed out parallels to the jazz operas of the 1920s by Ernst Krenek or Kurt Weill , which Denissow did not want to highlight. Because of his careful planning of the scene structure, the composer himself saw the work more in the tradition of Mozart .

The ninth scene of the opera contains a quote from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde . Denisov viewed the third act as the “heart” of the opera, to which all the musical material leads. According to Ulrich Schreiber , the enigmatic epilogue of the opera is a symbol that Colin, like Tristan, dies a love death in Wagner's opera . The quotation mentioned already refers to this.

Some passages are spoken melodramatically with music by the actors.

orchestra

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

Work history

After the Russian composer Denisov had already composed his song cycle La vie en rouge in 1973 based on texts by the French jazz musician and existentialist poet Boris Vian , he chose his novel L'écume des jours as the template for his second opera. He wrote the libretto himself in French, integrated some of Vian's poems into it and also used Gregorian chant and liturgical texts.

From 1977 on, Denisov did not compose the opera on the basis of a composition commission. Therefore, after its completion in 1981, it took a few years until it was staged for the first time in 1986. Before that, the concert suite Colin et Chloé had only been played in Moscow on October 17, 1983 .

The world premiere on March 15, 1986 was under the musical direction of John Burdekin. The production came from Jean-Claude Fall . Thierry Dran (Colin), Véronique Dietschy (Chloé), Marcel Quillevére (Chick), Fernand Dumont (Nicolas), Eva Saurova (Alise), Elian Lublin (Isis), Jean-Louis Soumagnas (Mangemanche), Bruce Brewer (Seneschall) ), Michel Philippe (director of the arms factory), Jean-Noel Beguelin (Jesus) and Catherine Martin (girl). Sarah Mesguich played the mouse and Jean Rumeau the pharmacist. In the Paris performance, the wedding scene was omitted. The work failed.

There were further performances in Perm in 1989 under the title Pena dney and in 1991 in Gelsenkirchen as Der Schaum der Tage. Excerpts from Duke Ellington's music were played live there. The opera was given in Mannheim in 1994. These attempts at revival during the composer's lifetime were initially without consequences.

A production by the Stuttgart State Opera in a production by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito did not attract more attention until 2012 . Sylvain Cambreling was the musical director of the Stuttgart State Orchestra and the Stuttgart State Opera Choir . The stage was by Jens Kilian , the lighting design by Reinhard Traub , the costumes by Anja Rabes and the video clips by Chris Kondek . Ed Lyon (Colin), Rebecca von Lipinski (Chloé), Daniel Kluge (Chick) and Sophie Marilley (Alise) sang the leading roles . A recording was broadcast on Deutschlandradio Kultur and on SWR2 . The production won the International Diaghilev Award 2013 as “Best Opera Production”. In 2017 the opera was again included in the program and made available as a video stream on the internet as part of the opera platform.

Recordings

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The IRCAM names seven clarinets.
  2. ↑ The bassoons are not listed on IRCAM.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Detlef Gojowy :  Ecume des jours, L '. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  2. ↑ The foam of the days. In: Heinz Wagner: The great manual of the opera. 4th edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-937872-38-4 , pp. 273-274.
  3. ↑ a b c d Ulrich Schreiber : Opera guide for advanced learners. The 20th century III. Eastern and Northern Europe, branch lines on the main route, intercontinental distribution. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-7618-1859-9 , pp. 99-101.
  4. ↑ a b The foam of the days. Performance and work information ( memento from June 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) of the Stuttgart State Opera , accessed on October 29, 2017.
  5. ↑ a b c The foam of the days. Video stream ( memento of October 20, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) on Operavision, accessed on October 29, 2017 (video no longer available).
  6. ↑ Information on works from Sikorski Musikverlagen , accessed on October 29, 2017.
  7. ↑ a b information on works at IRCAM , accessed on October 29, 2017.
  8. ↑ Amanda Holden (Ed.): The Viking Opera Guide. Viking, London / New York 1993, ISBN 0-670-81292-7 , p. 258.
  9. ↑ a b c Edison Denisow. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all complete opera recordings (= Zeno.org . Volume 20). Directmedia, Berlin 2005.
  10. ↑ a b c Volker Hagedorn: Sartre and the house mouse. In Stuttgart Edison Denisov's opera “The Foam of Days” based on Boris Vian is being rehabilitated in a grandiose manner. In: Die Zeit vom December 6, 2012, accessed on November 1, 2017.
  11. ↑ a b Reinhard Ermen: Moderation manuscript (PDF) for the broadcast of the opera on SWR2 on February 24, 2013, accessed on November 1, 2017.
  12. ↑ Uwe Schweikert : Absurd Bohème. Edison Denisov's “Foam of the Days”: Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito are committed to a forgotten masterpiece in Stuttgart. In: Opernwelt from January 2013, p. 8.
  13. ↑ a b Edison Denisov "The foam days" in Stuttgart. Program information from October 8, 2012 on Deutschlandradio Kultur , accessed on October 29, 2017.
  14. ↑ Live Stream - DER SCHAUM DER TAGE by Edison Denisov - Oper Stuttgart ( Memento from November 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) on operaticket.de, accessed on October 29, 2017.