Michaël Levinas
Commissioned by Opéra de Lille and the Minister of Culture and Communication of France
French libretto :
Je, tu, il by Valère Novarina (Prologue à la Métamorphose, commissioned by the Opéra de Lille); libretto after Die Verwandlung, Franz Kafka, 1915 : Emmanuel Moses, Michaël Levinas and Benoît Meudic
Stage director : Stanislas Nordey
Premiered by Ictus | Conductor : Georges-Elie Octors
Fabrice di Falco, Magali Léger
Opéra de Lille, march 2011
Set Designer : Emmanuel Clolus
Costume Designer : Raoul Fernandez
Lighting Designer: Stéphanie Daniel
Repetitor : Christophe Manien
IRCAM computer music designer : Benoît Meudic / Michaël Levinas (research residency at IRCAM)
Coproduction : Opéra de Lille / Ircam-Centre Pompidou
On this page :
Note of intention
Letter from Levinas to Novarina
NOTE OF INTENTION
Michaël Levinas
Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” imposed itself on me as a veritable theatrical myth that gave inspiration to a sung language and a world of opera.
In my previous operas, on Gogol’s “The Overcoat” and Jean Genet’s “Les Nègres”, the question asked was always about the identity of the subject (who is the “I”? Who is the “Other”?), the textual and musical narrative, the “theatrical time”.
Working with the writing of Genet forced me to adopt a more rigorous method in order to address the semiotic structures of musical language in relation to the French language, all this in a very complex and multifaceted relationship between sound and meaning.
Since writing “Les Nègres”, I developed this research in my teaching at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Paris, primarily around the European repertoire of the end of the 19th century and the 20th century. This notably involves meetings between Mallarme, Verlaine and the French and Viennese composers of the 20th century.
This study (text-song-theatre-opera) led me to imagine an opera based on Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, this time proposing a collaboration with two living writers, Valere Novarina and Emmanuel Moses.
With Valere Novarina I encountered not only a great playwright but also the creator of a language of variation, of mutation, of metamorphosis, and also a transcendent poet.
Emmanuel Moses is a poet and creator as well, of course, but he is also a great translator of the German language, as well as the heir of a school of philosophical thought (Emmanuel Moses is the son of the philosopher Stephane Moses, specialist in Rosenzweig, Scholem, Kafka and Levinas) that is very dear to me and that ties me to the poetic and spiritual themes in Kafka’s world.
In preparation for this collaboration on the stage, in 2007 I wrote madrigals on texts by Novarina and Geraschim Luca.
The structure of this new opera, “The Metamorphosis”, will be organized around a prologue on an original text by Novarina, followed by “The Metamorphosis” on a text adapted and recreated by Emmanuel Moses from Kafka’s novella.
Duration of the opera: between 1h45 and 2 hours
M.L.
LETTRE FROM MICHAËL LEVINAS
TO VALERE NOVARINA
Dear Valere,
Below are a few arguments that situate more precisely for me the theatrical dimension of “The Metamorphosis” and the ambition towards the opera.
This text works on two levels of time:
1) What I call the time “from one day to the next” (when Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a night of fitful sleep, he found himself in his bed transformed into a giant cockroach…)
2) The “smooth” time. This, of course, is the slow and almost unnoticeable metamorphosis of Gregor.
3) This metamorphosis is also one of a vital space that breaks brutally from daily professional life (visit from the authorities) then evolves imperceptibly towards a confined cell with two dimensions: the room where Gregor deteriorates and the corridors of the background where the family lives.
The narrative of this Metamorphosis is practically polyphonic: the smooth time of the metamorphosis and of the progressive confinement and the events (the sister bursting into Gregor’s room; violent scenes with the father and the tenants).
These two narrative times are superimposed.
4) There is therefore a metamorphosis of the body and a metamorphosis of the space and of the two confined cells. This is why I imagine a stage set with 3 telescopic spaces that fit within one another like a Russian doll:
The closed cell of Gregor, the closed cell of the family and in the far background “the street and the daily normality of ‘everyone’, the free air.”
This chronological and polyphonic work of Kafka on the space and the narrative is essential for the composition and history of the opera.
The narrative and chronological text is rigorously linked to the musical form itself. These questions of “transition” from one moment to another, from one scene to another, the metamorphosis from one scene into another, from one word into another, from one meaning into another are neuralgic, in cinema, in theatre, in opera.
Dialogues, the question of the identity of the subject
5) Does the subject, the “I”, remain within the human body that turns into a cockroach?
6) This raises the question of the indentity of the subject, of the theatrical dialogue, the internal dialogue,
(what La Fleche in Moliere calls “I am talking to my hat”)
Who hears whom? At what moment in the decomposition of the body does the dialogue break off? This is a question of hearing and mis-hearing.
Dissolution of the inter-human connection and of the myth of the family
This tension in the text leads to the tragic awareness of the dissolution of the inter-human and family connect. Kafka’s intuition also tragically foreshadows the horrors of the concentration-camp victims. (Perhaps?)
Text and voice: the question of the opera
The role of Gregor Samsa will be sung by a countertenor.
There will be a slow metamorphosis of the voice, which will also be processed in a hybrid mix of digital technology and musical instruments. It will not be a question of imitating the cries of animals but rather to use the hybrid principles that I began to develop in my previous operas: tambourine texts in Les Negres, Conference des Oiseaux, etc. I want the text to respect the laws of syntax and meaning (at the origin of certain melodies), all the while also developing the “noise” of certain consonants.
At the heart of the poetic and prosaic invention of the French language, the same imperatives of meaning are posed as those of the temporal and chronological complexity in Kafka’s text.
Resolution
This novella offers the possibility of a resolution: we toss out the cockroach. Life begins again in the free air. The telescopic rooms break away and let in the “light of day”, that of the street. Everyone breathes: it’s the post-war era, the Golden Years.
Can one incarnate the role of Gregor Samsa? Can one represent a cockroach?
For the first edition of “The Metamorphosis”, Kafka asked that there be no illustration of a cockroach. I seek to overcome this reticence by working on the role through movement.
It is a question of regulating Gregor’s movements by going from a “biped” movement to a crawling movement.
A “dance” scene is planned around the movement of the insect that climbs the walls up to the ceiling. The organisation of the role’s rhythm and music and prose is structured around the static state or the movement of the insect-human.
That’s about as far as I can go at this point, and I await your response, which I am sure will be rich and enlightening. I remain convinced that “The Metamorphosis” is a great text and a true theatrical myth.
This myth speaks to us and in this sense it is contemporary. It also poses the question of how to stage the narrative. It is a narrative transmuted by the force of a contemporary myth; the rejection of the body. For me, this myth also echoes Gogol’s “The Nose” and Solzhenitsyn’s “Cancer Ward”. It goes beyond the legends of 19th century opera.
M.L.
Valère Novarina by Pascale Bouhénic
Gregor (countertenor): Fabrice Di Falco
The Sister (soprano) : Magali Léger
The Father (baritone) : André Heyboer
The Mother (contralto) : Anne Mason
The Employer (bass) : Simon Bailey
The three Tenants (tenor, baritone, basse) : Simon Bailey, Laurent Laberdesque, Arnaud Guillou
The Maid (mezzo) : Julie Pasturaud
Set Designer : Emmanuel Clolus
Costume Designer : Raoul Fernandez
Lighting Designer: André Diot
Repetitor : Christophe Manien