Christophe Colomb
A two-part opera presenting episodes from the life of Christopher Columbus in a non-chronological order, with some allegorical scenes.
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A two-part opera presenting episodes from the life of Christopher Columbus in a non-chronological order, with some allegorical scenes.
L'Homme et son désir, Op. 48, is a ballet composed by Darius Milhaud from 1917–18, based on a scenario of Paul Claudel. It was written in Brazil, where Milhaud had accompanied Claudel as a secretary when the latter was appointed ambassador to Rio de Janeiro. It was the passage of the Ballets Russes with Vaslav Nijinsky in Rio de Janeiro that triggered it. This was Claudel's first musical collaboration and he then repeated the experience several times with some major works (including Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher). The work is also one of Milhaud's first ballets. The score is written for four voices (wordless) and a small orchestra and a large number of percussion instruments (including a whip and a whistle). The Premiere took place on 6 June 1921, with a choreography by the Ballets suédois under the orchestral direction of Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht.
Darius Milhaud’s French-language operatic setting of Aeschylus’s Oresteia triptych, comprising Agamemnon, Les Choéphores, and Les Euménides.
The drama recounts Columbus’s voyages through a theatrical “Book of Life” read by an Explicator and commented on by a Chorus. After Columbus dies, a second, mythic self watches his life unfold: from the voyage and discovery of America to his return, loss of power, imprisonment and death.
Set twenty years after L’Otage, the play follows Turelure, now an elderly official, and his son Louis, who owes money to Lumîr, a Polish woman seeking funds for her country’s liberation. Louis, Lumîr and Turelure’s mistress Sichel scheme to obtain Turelure’s hoard; after Louis shoots at his father and Turelure dies, Louis inherits his property and makes a self-serving marriage proposal to Sichel.
Set in Rome during Italian unification, the drama follows Pensée, the blind daughter of Sichel and Louis de Coûfontaine, and Orian, the Pope’s nephew and adopted son. Their love crosses religious and political conflicts; after Orian dies in the 1870 war, Pensée awaits his child amid the struggle between spiritual vocation and human love.
A three-act theatre drama drawing on the Book of Tobit.
During the final years of Napoleon’s Empire, Georges de Coûfontaine brings the captured Pope to his cousin Sygne’s estate. Toussaint Turelure, the former servant responsible for her parents’ deaths and now an imperial prefect, pressures Sygne to marry him in exchange for the Pope’s release, forcing her to choose between her love for Georges and the hostage’s rescue.
A French prisoner of war dreams of his orphaned grandchildren and a puppet theatre in their bedroom. In the nested farces, a plush bear who is a swindling financier tries to keep a stolen diamond, while an old Moon schemes to win a legless aviator’s love; the schemes entangle with the orphans’ future and end in a dreamlike release.
Set during the Renaissance and the age of the conquistadors, this long love story explores sin and redemption through divine and comic characters who speak as if in dialogue between Heaven and Earth.
A two-part opera presenting episodes from the life of Christopher Columbus in a non-chronological order, with some allegorical scenes.
L'Homme et son désir, Op. 48, is a ballet composed by Darius Milhaud from 1917–18, based on a scenario of Paul Claudel. It was written in Brazil, where Milhaud had accompanied Claudel as a secretary when the latter was appointed ambassador to Rio de Janeiro. It was the passage of the Ballets Russes with Vaslav Nijinsky in Rio de Janeiro that triggered it. This was Claudel's first musical collaboration and he then repeated the experience several times with some major works (including Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher). The work is also one of Milhaud's first ballets. The score is written for four voices (wordless) and a small orchestra and a large number of percussion instruments (including a whip and a whistle). The Premiere took place on 6 June 1921, with a choreography by the Ballets suédois under the orchestral direction of Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht.
Darius Milhaud’s French-language operatic setting of Aeschylus’s Oresteia triptych, comprising Agamemnon, Les Choéphores, and Les Euménides.
The drama recounts Columbus’s voyages through a theatrical “Book of Life” read by an Explicator and commented on by a Chorus. After Columbus dies, a second, mythic self watches his life unfold: from the voyage and discovery of America to his return, loss of power, imprisonment and death.
Set twenty years after L’Otage, the play follows Turelure, now an elderly official, and his son Louis, who owes money to Lumîr, a Polish woman seeking funds for her country’s liberation. Louis, Lumîr and Turelure’s mistress Sichel scheme to obtain Turelure’s hoard; after Louis shoots at his father and Turelure dies, Louis inherits his property and makes a self-serving marriage proposal to Sichel.
Set in Rome during Italian unification, the drama follows Pensée, the blind daughter of Sichel and Louis de Coûfontaine, and Orian, the Pope’s nephew and adopted son. Their love crosses religious and political conflicts; after Orian dies in the 1870 war, Pensée awaits his child amid the struggle between spiritual vocation and human love.
A three-act theatre drama drawing on the Book of Tobit.
During the final years of Napoleon’s Empire, Georges de Coûfontaine brings the captured Pope to his cousin Sygne’s estate. Toussaint Turelure, the former servant responsible for her parents’ deaths and now an imperial prefect, pressures Sygne to marry him in exchange for the Pope’s release, forcing her to choose between her love for Georges and the hostage’s rescue.
A French prisoner of war dreams of his orphaned grandchildren and a puppet theatre in their bedroom. In the nested farces, a plush bear who is a swindling financier tries to keep a stolen diamond, while an old Moon schemes to win a legless aviator’s love; the schemes entangle with the orphans’ future and end in a dreamlike release.
Set during the Renaissance and the age of the conquistadors, this long love story explores sin and redemption through divine and comic characters who speak as if in dialogue between Heaven and Earth.