Realities, illusions, utopias...

Opera has an infinitely subtle relationship with the real world. It feeds off it, reinvents it, embellishes it, transposes it and modifies it at the whim of the artists' creativity. This is the source of the infinite pleasure of singing, of the élans of the orchestra and the chorus, of this art that stimulates our imagination and inspires our reflection...

Beyond the imagery of an idealised Middle Ages, the world of Maeterlinck and Debussy in Pelléas and Mélisande is the stuff of dreams and fantasies: the orchestra, the silences, the unspoken words constantly go beyond words. Katie Mitchell amplifies this dreamlike dimension through the prism of an omnipresent Mélisande, between dream and reality.

If there is one opera that deals with disillusionment in love, it is certainly Così fan tutteThis initiatory work is absolutely graceful, but not without its bitterness. Christophe Honoré sets his production in a colonial-era African town. The discrepancy he creates in no way detracts from the story, but underlines the universality of this masterpiece.

The very title of the Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno based on a libretto by Cardinal Pamphili, reveals its moralizing intent: Beauty and Pleasure face Time and Disillusionment in an unequal struggle... Krzysztof Warlikowski takes up the fable and illuminates it with the fires of adolescence.

Zoroaster is set in a world inspired by the ancient cults of the Babylonian world. As Mozart would later do in The Magic FluteRameau drew his inspiration from this fantasised ancient world to develop a conception of the world based on Masonic ideals.

Oedipus cannot bear the revelation of his union with Jocasta, his mother and his wife. He gouged out his eyes and condemned himself to exile. Emphasising the archaic and timeless dimension of the myth, Stravinsky chose to set it to music in Latin. Peter Sellars returns to the source, re-reading Sophocles and extending Stravinsky's opera with Antigone's story, echoed by the admirable choruses of the Symphony of Psalms.

Another world premiere in this edition, Kalîla wa Dimna by Moneim Adwan, an opera sung in Arabic and spoken in French, draws its narrative material from a very ancient collection of animal fables. Here, too, the realities of power, the corruption it produces and the utopia of radical change transcend the ages.

Art may seem derisory in the face of the violence and fear that afflict our world. However fragile it may be in the face of obscurantism and terror, it offers us the memory, creativity and utopian force we need to survive the blasts and invent a different future. Each community of spectators brought together by a work of art is an experience of our shared humanity. That experience is more precious than ever.

Bernard Foccroulle
Chief Executive Officer

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