Always between two trains, or two countries, or two towns, catch me if you can. You may find me in English, except if I am in Pali or some other more or less exotic language, or book. Have you tried the Dhammapada recently? If not, just give it a try, in Pali of course. You may also have a try at looking for me on the Internet, simply Coulardeau with Google, but on the global web, not on the French pages of it. Have a good trip.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Tristan and Yseult, the love-philter victims
Tristan, Yseult: Sex pure loveless possession by philters?
Mon objectif ici est de mettre Tristan et Yseult, la légende en perspective contextuelle de son temps et donc de prendre cette légende dans le temps long du passage de la civilisation celte dont elle est issue à l’établissement complet et final du féodalisme chrétien vers la fin du 12ème et le début du 13ème siècle, période qui correspond parfaitement aux premières versions en franco-normand, en allemand ou en norrois. Cette approche se justifie uniquement par le fait que l’Angleterre, le Pays de Galles et la Cornouaille ont vécu à partir du 5ème siècle un vaste processus de christianisation dans le cadre d’une société orale parce que l’immense majorité des gens ne savaient ni lire ni écrire, parce que la disparition du papyrus égyptien a fait disparaître tout support d’écriture non biodégradable et léger jusqu’à l’apparition du Vélin au milieu du 12ème siècle comme nous le verrons. Il a fallu attendre cette invention du papier ramené de l’Orient par les croisades pour que l’écriture puisse redevenir un moyen de communication et de circulation des œuvres.
In our present time of crises
and contradictions we have to stop one moment and think as clearly as possible
upon this following question: “Will we
survive the present crisis, not as individuals, not as nations, but as
humanity?” They all tell us about the ecological dangers in the present
time: the warming up of our planet; the climate change on our planet; the
carbon cycle that comes to a peak that will cause the eradication of some 80 to
90% of all species on our planet soon, even if it takes ten thousand years to
be completed. And then you can add the various bubbles – debt, real estate,
overproduction, financial speculation, and even the social bubble of unrefrained and uncontrolled migration and the
explosion of refugees among these migrants – building up here and there in the
economy and the craziness of some of the
extremes of our political system who pretend that states do not have to mind
their debts and that more money to the poor will bring economic growth. States
can do what they want, provided they keep
their national currency autonomy.
This last idea is the proof
the world is sick and probably dying of insanity because there are so many
examples in history and particularly over the last four or five centuries of
crises in one country, in several countries, in many countries that prove a limited financial crisis can bring the
world down and Keynes has not changed that. He has at best given us the
illusion that we can live on credit, not as individuals who are always caught
up by their debts, but as nations who can always do what they want with their
currency, close their borders, introduce limitations on the circulation of
money, foreign currencies and many other things of the sort like imports and
exports.
Keynes could not know the
globalized world we are just entering. And in this globalized world goods,
money, currencies, everything is one and no country can survive alone, no
country can even live alone, and unluckily no country can die alone. What
happens in one country is at once propagated into the whole world like ripples
or waves on the ocean. And some want to see everything is so connected that it
is all some kind of predestination, some fate: all is in all and everything is everywhere at once. . .
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 12:53 PM 0 comments
Sunday, January 28, 2018
When resilience turns a defeat into a resilient victory
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN – DUNKIRK – 2017
This film is essentially a visual story that tells us how the battle of Dunkirk, or rather the heroic defeat of Dunkirk went, and it went very badly. 400,000 soldiers, English, French and Belgian or even Dutch encircled in Dunkirk and completely besieged till the end.
For the Germans, it was just a question of killing as many as possible while trying to escape and taking those who did not try to escape too much into the slavery of some labor camps, war prisoner camps or whatever they were called. Arbeit macht frei, as we know and worked they were well obliged to do.
For the French, it was only a question of resilience and resistance that started straight away, called for by De Gaulle and mainly by the left with the Communists in the heart of it, in spite of what will be said later.
For the English, the question was only know how many fighters they would be able to save and take to England, fighters that could be integrated into the English armed forces straight away. So the priority was on English survivors who had to be taken on ships, but many were sunk by airplanes or by submarines, and then by smaller ships, mostly private that were requisitioned by Churchill. The last element in this war was the role of the Royal Air Force that was supposed to bring down as many German planes as possible and thus enable the escapees on their ships and boats to make it across the Channel in the least unsafe way possible, with as many survivors as possible.
Historically this battle was essential to demonstrate the power of the Germans and send a tsunami of fear all over the world. At the same time this battle was essential because even if it did not stop the Germans, it prepared the English side of the channel to be ready for the Blitz that was to come and for the RAF to win it, and win it they did.
But why a film about this battle today? To revive the memories of people who are less and less direct witness of the war and the generation born after the war and raised in the spirit of the war are in process of retiring and will soon be in the process of disappearing. But the younger generation may have to learn about it, but learn about it in its absolute horror, and that is a great point to note about this film. It centers everything, every scene on the suffering of the men trapped in that dead-end place. It is also maybe necessary to just remind all politicians in Europe that this continent has had peace for a long time because the French and the German were able to sign a treaty in the early 60s that brought reconciliation and cooperation between the two countries, a treaty that was signed by De Gaulle who had been an essential leader of the resistance during the war and Adenauer who had lived through more than just the war, also the whole post First World War period in Germany meaning the absurd rivalry between the Communists and the Social-Democrats that left the gate to power open for Hitler to come and just pick the fruit. A meager thirty plus percent “majority” enabled Hitler to defeat the two main left parties who actually had a majority in the country. That is not brought back in this film but maybe some younger people will be curious enough to look for more data about how and why Hitler seized power in the best democratic way. After his victory democracy was very fast buried, but the first step was a democratic victory in the country.
But the most striking element in this film is, of course, the depicting of suffering, fear, resignation, resilience, hope maybe even in the very heart of the certainty of death had finally come. Pain is beautiful when it is not gratuitous. Some may say that war was senseless. The way it was fought in 1940 was absolutely amazingly meaningless. But once you reach Dunkirk the possible options are very limited and the suffering of the soldiers taken in that trap like as many rats reveals the humanity and the faith of these men in the existence somewhere maybe of peace, justice, and plain humanity.
A beautiful moment of sad awareness.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 1:09 PM 0 comments
YUVAL NOAH
HARARI — SAPIENS, A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND — 2011
My first remark is that the book
starts the history of humanity at 70,000 years BCE. At this time all the
migrations out of Africa have taken place and were practically finished. That
enables the author NOT TO CONSIDER the at least 230,000 years of Homo Sapiens’s
emergence before this date 70,000 BCE, and this emergence took place in Africa
and ONLY Africa. This is from my point of view a grave and sinister shortcoming
that is practically racist, de facto segregative against Africans. The author
can then forget to tell us we are all originally black and in the book this
black exclusion is systematic. Later on, when he speaks of the agricultural
revolution, he rightly connects this agriculture with cereals, rice, wheat,
corn, and some other like rye, oats, etc. And here again, since this
agriculture that emerged in Africa too is not based on cereals (except in Egypt
which is not officially black) but on cassava which is a root, the African
continent is entirely ignored. This then becomes a bias, a choice, a desire, an
intention: ignore Africa.
YUVAL NOAH HARARI — HOMO
DEUS, A BRIEF HISTORY OF TOMORROW — 2015
This is the too long
presentation of the various ideological, technical, technological and
scientific theories and at times pure dystopias produced today by the
Internet-of-All-Things in the WEIRD world, meaning the new upgraded old WASP
(White Anglo Saxon Protestant) into Western Educated Industrialized Rich and
Democratic. he never questions these elements either in meaning or legitimacy.
Why Western and not Asian. What on earth is an education valid for the whole
“global village” (never attributed to its author, Marshall McLuhan) as he says
so often? Industrialized is not elaborated upon and no question about what
industry is, what it is for, what it produces, what makes the value of these
products, how these products can bring in the added value they carry, where
does this added value come from, and above all could there be any
industrialized world without producers and customers? He easily envisages the
total disappearance of human producers but what would the customers these
producers are, become if they were no longer producers? Could the economy of a
country work if all customers disappeared because of their not being producers
at all? And there will always be a good mind, like Ron Hubbard to say that
useless people have to be liquidated in a vast war against parasitical
organisms.
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 2:39 AM 0 comments
Saturday, January 27, 2018
So delicate and empathetic
MOONLIGHT – 2017
A fascinating and surprising film about being black in the USA today. The story of a black boy starts in early middle school through to adulthood. He has a family environment that does not help him a lot since he has no father and his mother is practicing home prostitution which kicks the boy out when she has some guest. She adds some drugs on top of it. At school he is ostracized and maybe even bullied if not victimized as being different though he does not know how.
In middle school he has a contact with another boy, one night on the beach, very flimsy and light. But that contact is strong for him, like a compensation for all the suffering. A few years later, in high school or so his friend is forced to beat him up in the schoolyard to prove he is not a “fag”. Chiron takes it hard and has his vengeance on the following day in class. That will have him arrested. We then jump to adulthood.
Chiron is living a very solitary life, though we do not really know what he is doing. Probably some drug dealing. One night he is called by his friend from school who tells him he is a chef and has a restaurant. He invites him over but everything stays vague. Later on after a visit to his mother who is institutionalized in a way or other he drives to his school friend’s restaurant. Communication is difficult.
But little by little, from chef’s special to special record he goes to his friend’s place to spend the night and some communication comes when he finally tells his friend that since the episode on the beach there has been nothing at all, total abstinence. The door to some emotional contact opens up then.
For black people it is difficult to be gay because of the family structure of their childhood and teenage. Strong opposition exists among black males against anything gay. It is an easy reason to have violence and to assert one’s virility by beating up others. Bullying is also an essential force for some black boys to keep control of everything and everyone, knowing that none of their victims will press charges, nor their parents.
The film is delicate in how it shows the frustration, the desires, the suffering of this Chiron and yet his capability to remain resilient and to negotiate some way out of the trap in which he is. It is this nice reserve and close empathy that makes this film kind of attractive and appealing.
It is neither a manifesto about gay blacks or gayness in black society. It is a very sensitive story that remains entirely subdued, humble.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 1:42 PM 0 comments
THE GOSPEL OF THE RAUSCHMONSTRUM THE RISE AND FALL OF THE HORDE by NICK LA TORRE
Welcome to the universe of this Nick La Torre. It is a depiction of what the world becomes when the truth is smoke and spirits are alcoholic. God is frankly dead and replaced by some supernatural monster straight out of Dean, and Sam Winchester’s delirium tremens of a series, a shapeshifter par excellence who (? Shouldn’t it be that) can haunt anyone, visit any place and replace any character on this stage dedicated to strutting nincompoops.
And we are the brainless nincompoops of the fable. Eins! Zwei! Drei! Prosit!
One more bottle on the top of the wall One more drunky at the foot of the wall One more wino at large in society Counting his toes he can’t even see He has forgotten to take off his shoes
The clock rings the hours the tosspot can’t count Some dog barks in some barn the juicehead can’t hear Beer flows down his throat like a tsunami in Japan The tropical storm grows into a hurricane And the piss artist wets his pants and bed
Don’t worry, good law-abiding citizens, between pussy-grabbing episodes, these spongy hop heads will run for elections and win them ending up in the Senate, the House of Representatives and even the White House. We all need a little small besotted alky in some cupboard for our comfort and serenity.
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 1:27 PM 0 comments
Mylene Farmer Timeless
Etre emporté danns le cosmos et l'espace à l'intérieur d'un ordinateur, des neurones digitaux numériques d'une carte mère qui noie l'esprit dans le mouvement de pénétration ou d'envahissement, d'enlisement dans l'infini ou de transmutatiion dans l'intérieur même de la vie qui s'engouffre en nous et qui nous emporte vers des univers imprévus. Laissez vous porter par la musique et par la foule. C'est de la magie irréelle, de l'hypnose virtuelle, de la méditation nirvanique vers l'illumination de la foi en une beauté que l'on ne trouve que dans sa propre âme, dans on propre esprit, dans ses propres contournements mentaux qui permettent d'éviter les catastrophes existentielles. Mais que de rapaces sur la route, que de voraces prédateurs dans le bois prêts à sortir au moindre appel de quelque psychotique président de je ne sais quelle république ou réplique voleuse d'un rêve de bonheur détourné au seul profit d'une élite qui exploite la terre entière.
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 9:22 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Read the saga and forget the film
STEPHEN KING – THE DARK TOWER – 2017
If you have read the eight-volume saga entitled The Dark
Tower by Stephen King, you will be disappointed in the worst possible way. This
film does not have the magic, the tension and the perspective the saga has. Why
on earth does Stephen King accept to put his name on such a treacherous
betrayal of his work, of his art? It is beyond me.
This film is a mediocre action film for teenagers, and not
too old please, with a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of violence, a
little bit of magic, and everything mixed up and whipped together with galore
special effects. And really nothing actually saves the project. Too bad because
the saga is a masterpiece in all possible ways brought down to earth and made
to bite the dust by this adaptation.
If you really want to have an adventure going to the Dark
Tower and seeing the Crimson King just before finding out it is a never-ending
always ever restarting again story, you better buy the eight volumes and get
ready to read some seven thousand pages. Then you will find what fantasy is
under the pen and in the hands of Stephen King. Not this tasteless daub, for
sure.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 12:37 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Thrilling human trafficking
IAN ANDREW – FACE VALUE – 2015
If you like action novels, suspense stories, and police drama, you will enjoy this book.
First of all, the two main private investigators are two women, along with a whole bunch of other assistants, both women, and men. All of them are veterans of some armed forces in Great Britain, like the author, so that the technical side of the story is perfect, or at least you will find it perfect. The author sure proves that women can be particularly effective and powerful in their chase of some organized crime.
The second reason is that it deals with some human trafficking in Great Britain, led by a Russian chap with a lot of helpers too, all of them also veterans from the Russian armed forces and looking for some simple work that is less dangerous than war in Ukraine, Crimea, Chechenia or wherever Russia sends some troops. They work for a Russian criminal for sure but that is a lot easier than war and even when it ends badly no one or nearly no one is killed. Arrested, yes, but not shot dead by police forces because police forces do not like the paperwork that goes along with killing someone who is nothing but a suspect even when caught red-handed in some criminal activity.
The third reason is that this story shows how human trafficking works in our modern world. It works with fake papers and these fake papers require some accomplices within some administration to produce them. One thing is sure though: the introduction of the biometric passport in 2006 and the end of the validity of traditional passports in 2016 prevent that human trafficking from going on. But don’t worry there are other methods that are invented every morning in the mind of a creative criminal somewhere in the world, including next door to home.
The fourth reason is the description of the business: escorts for rich clients in ritzy hotels; pornographic videos spread around on the Internet; and other services like sexy chatrooms in which anyone can ask for this or that from the “model” in the chatroom who will respond positively, of course, provided the customer has paid his subscription with a valid credit card. On the side, there can be some credit card trafficking when some customers are too gullible and do not protect their identity. The other day a scam hiding itself behind a “University of California at Davis Alumni” facade was promising on the phone a phenomenal deal to boost the global image of a “gullible of course” researcher for a few hundred dollars, and to deal with this proposal the “customer” was asked to give the secret security number on the back of his credit card first. This shows how gullible some people can be. Such information is NOT supposed to be given on the telephone to anyone and can only be given on the Internet to services you are sure are clean.
This story should make people think twice when dealing with their privacy and security, but I guess there are quite a few people who have some inner drives that are stronger than their common sense. As for this aspect of the story, I find it rather refreshing.
The fifth reason is that self-defense can be dangerous for the attacker who can be killed by some well-used procedure, and there are too many people who are harassing or assaulting people, in this story women, but more generally anyone, for any satisfaction as a bully, or any profit as a mugger. The police will have to proceed and the person who self-defended himself or herself will be confronted with manslaughter and all it means in court. The story here deals with professionals of such situation, the two main female characters, who leave behind absolutely no evidence because they know the job, but the police are not blind, far from it, just powerless in front of a job well done.
So it ends with a proposal to the two women to become advisers of police forces about the cleaning methods a good criminal can use, and thus the possible means you can use to get beyond these methods. The best persons qualified to fight against forgers, hackers, criminals are in fact the very same forgers, hackers, and criminals who accept to provide the police with their skills to fight against such criminal activities. This end might be depressing to some readers, but it is true the best hackers are paid fortunes just to work for some secret or security services, both public and private.
The last point is probably the fact that immigration is not always criminal and human trafficking but it can be that and there must be some way to prevent it, to stop it. Human slavery does exist and quite often under our noses, in front of our eyes, on our doorsteps. We have to be aware of that to stop it. Such criminal activities need some accomplices within the country and that’s the worst part of the business. Imagine two grownup children who find out that their parents have been criminals for decades and they have not seen it at all. The story is pathetic then and rather discreet about the reaction of the daughter, though we do not know the reaction of the son who is absent at the time of the revelation.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 2:53 PM 0 comments
The two films together are a masterpiece for peace in the world and for major powers to set the example to all other nations.
It is high time Trump’s warmongering were brought to a halt, an end, a stop.
Only the United Nations have the legitimacy to declared a war against anyone, any nation, any state that want to impose their views to the world with violence and war.
In that case Trump himself has no legitimacy at all. He is not the loudspeaker of the world even if he wants to be the bully of it.
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 2:44 PM 0 comments
Trump's 'global gag rule': how women are fighting back
Trump is grabbing these women all over the world and particularly in Africa by their pregnancies in dramatic situations having to do with AIDS, Cancer, and rape. This is inhumane but it will enable other countries, like China, to move in. The US prestige, authority, and influence will be reduced in proportion.
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 9:58 AM 0 comments
Lost in the middle of nowhere in Central France this ex-industrial wasteland of the French postal and telephone public company was bought by Gilles and Sylvie Iniesta in 2003 and they opened it up to street artists in 2016, and finally to the public in May 2017.
Unique in the world, it is becoming like all respectable vampires or werewolves, becoming the first non-urban permanent and sustainable center of Street Art and it is worth a detour if you are not too far, or even a trip if you are from more distant climes. The 128 bedrooms of this ex-training center are not yet open to the public, but they will be soon.
Street art is evanescent and here it is made to last longer than a couple of days or weeks. It is international and it is first of all a cry for freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of delivery and distribution to the public, freedom of thought and of creation.
This project is so attractive to these street artists that the owners have to choose, select, something that goes against the grain of street art but that will have to be managed "professionally" without falling down, into the abyss of politically, socially, culturally, artistically correct trendiness.
To be followed with interest and dililgence. Get on your Internet and Google or Bling or whatever "Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis" to have teh latest news.
This series is extremely difficult to analyze because it is so unreal that it sounds untrue though we know it is particularly true, with a few mistakes. […]
PERSON OF INTEREST – SEASON 5 – 2017
[…] The Botmaster will never win such a war but the Botmaster is not a stranger, is not a foreigner, he is one from inside the inner and even innerest circle of the federal state in the USA.
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 2:21 PM 0 comments
L’Autre dans La Venexiana, comédie anonyme du Cinquecento
Christian ANDRÈS
Le guanche de Ténérife dans une comedia de Lope de Vega : un étranger ennemi, un sauvage ou un barbare ?
Henri SUHAMY
L’étranger dans le théâtre de Shakespeare
Maurice ABITEBOUL
Hamlet… entre autres : de l’altérité à l’aliénation et retour au même
Aline LE BERRE
Le père étranger dans Don Carlos de Schiller (1787)
Marc LACHENY
Un théâtre « qui ne fait de mal à personne » ? Pour une relecture des Bourgeois à Vienne (1813) et des Étrangers à Vienne (1814) d’Adolf Bäuerle
Jean-Pierre MOUCHON
L’Étranger, poème et musique de Vincent d’Indy (1903)
Jacques COULARDEAU
Benjamin Britten. L’étranger, l’enfant et la mort dans ses opéras
Edoardo ESPOSITO
Une énigme venue d’ailleurs dans une pièce de Pirandello
Marc LACHENY
Karl Kraus, de la Sorbonne à la Comédie-Française
Thérèse MALACHY
Le commissaire Maigret de Georges Simenon et « les autres »
Claude VILARS
Quand apparaît l’« autre » dans le théâtre de Sam Shepard
Marie-Françoise HAMARD
Place des héros de Thomas Bernhard : altérité et aliénation – identification et ipséité
Sepideh SHOKRI-POORI
Le théâtre iranien comme moyen d’intervention : le discours interculturel dans Hé ! Macbeth, seul le premier chien sait pourquoi il aboie
Sepideh SHOKRI-POORI
Marina Abramovic : un regard médusant
Ouriel ZOHAR
Le mariage mixte dans Elle voyait dans les champs étrangers (d’Ouriel Zohar)
Bruno MANCINI
Le [bouffon du] roi est mort, vive le [bouffon du] roi ! Souvenir de Dario Fo, dernier Prix Nobel italien de littérature
COMMENTAIRES ET RÉFLEXIONS
Olivier ABITEBOUL
L’autre philosophe : quand les philosophes se donnent en spectacle ou la relation épistolaire impossible
ATELIER D'ÉCRITURE
Michel AROUIMI
Marie Stuart ou Migration des reines
Maurice ABITEBOUL
Le Revenant ou l’autre en je(u)
VU SUR SCÈNE
Jean-Pierre MOUCHON
Chorégies d’Orange – La Traviata – Opéra en trois actes (musique de Giuseppe Verdi et livret de Francesco Maria Piave)
Marcel DARMON
Turandot, opéra de Puccini
NOTES DE LECTURE
Ingrid LACHENY
* Elena Randi, François Delsarte : la scène et l’archétype
Quelques publications récentes de nos rédacteurs :
Aline LE BERRE
* Marc Lacheny, Jacques Lajarrige, Éric Leroy du Cardonnoy (dir.), Modernité du mythe et violence de l’altérité..
Maurice ABITEBOUL
* Christian Andrès, Triptyque
NOTICES SUR LES AUTEURS SOMMAIRES DES NUMÉROS PRÉCÉDENTS
REVUE THEATRES DU MONDE Prix, commandes et abonnements Siège social : Université d'Avignon Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines ARIAS-Théâtres du Monde Madame Brigitte Urbani 62, route de Lyon 84000 - Avignon
Le prix du numéro, comportant 400 pages environ, est fixé actuellement à 35 euros (+ 5 euros de frais). (Abonnements et commandes doivent être adressés à Brigitte Urbani.)
PROCHAINS NUMÉROS :
numéro 28 (2018)
Le théâtre au risque de la traduction
numéro 29 (2019)
Bienséance et malséance / Décence et indécence
numéro 30 (2020)
Le bruit et la fureur au théâtre / Haine, violence et guerre
Propositions d'article pour publication La revue accepte, après accord du Comité de Lecture, de publier des articles portant sur le théâtre et les autres arts du spectacle (mimes, marionnettes, opéra, cinéma, etc.). Les manuscrits proposés à la revue en vue de publication doivent être adressés (joindre un résumé et un bref CV : fonctions, titres, axes de recherche notamment) directement par courrier électronique au directeur, Maurice Abiteboul et au rédacteur en chef, Marc Lacheny.
CONTRIBUTIONPERSONNELLE
Benjamin Britten. L’étranger, l’enfant et la mort dans ses opéras
Partant de l’opéra Death in Venice (1973) et concluant avec l’opéra The Children’s Crusade (1969), Jacques COULARDEAU remonte dans son étude jusqu’à Peter Grimes (1945) et se penche sur plusieurs thématiques : œuvres adaptées d’Henry James, inspiration religieuse, référence élisabéthaine, ainsi que l’enfant rejeté, exploité, victime.
Il prend ici le terme d’« étranger » dans ses trois acceptions anglaises : « stranger » (inconnu), « estranged » (ostracisé) et « foreigner » (d’un pays étranger). Le thème du rejet négatif ou de la sélection positive mais pour tâche sacrificielle ou calvaire salvateur est absolument central dans l’œuvre de Benjamin Britten qui, musicalement, fait se rencontrer diverses influences modernes ou anciennes, mais surtout qui construit avec ses librettistes des symboliques fortes puisant dans l’héritage roman médiéval. La musique est parfois époustouflante de modernité enracinée dans des traditions séculaires occasionnellement étrangères (Théâtre No du Japon).
You will find all the reading and research notes IN ENGLISH, opera by opera in the following file of some 140 pages.
I am pretty sure opera lovers, Benjamin Britten enthusiasts and music lovers will enjoy following, in chronological order, the building of a whole temple dedicated to the figure of the estranged man, rarely estranged woman, confronted to a child, most of the times a boy, at times a boy and a girl and how these children are confronted to death, real sad death that is anything but natural; but also the death that comes as sinister fate, as war and an obsessive and recurrent Jewish reference, be it Biblical or be it 1939 and Bertold Brecht’s visionary poem on the extermination of children, and first of all the Jewish child on the decision of a Nazi judge.
You will of course love and enjoy over and over again Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, that poignant story of an old man seeing his end coming and falling in love with a young teenager he will not speak to, he will not touch nor approach in any way, contemplating in him his possible descent, his possible heritage, his possible continuation in his search for beauty, the formal architecture of beauty that is so mesmerizing when met in pure mental and spiritual expectation to survive in it because beauty will survive his own departure.
Death becomes an offering to God and life in this empathetic search for fulfillment.
6 years spent in foreign countries: 1 year in North Carolina USA, 1 year in California USA, 1 year in Zaïre (Kinshasa), 3 months (2005, August-November) in Sri Lanka on research with an NGO attached to the UNESCO site of Sigiriya, numerous shorter periods in Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany (East and West), Austria, among others