There are proposals which, in the life of a composer, arrive, as if by magic, at the exact moment when the desire to do corresponds to the proposed project.
After Maria Republica (Angers-Nantes Opéra production created on April 19, 2016) and before tackling another great lyrical form, I decided to deepen my experience of musical theater while working on something very different . This contrast in the sequence of projects seemed to me desirable in order, on the one hand, to avoid too many repetitions made surely inevitable by the too close proximity of the previous work while allowing me, on the other hand, to explore with gluttony of new territories of the lyrical landscape .
So I had to tackle a decidedly different project that I imagined as follows: short project , (no more than an hour) small group , (4 or 5 musicians without a conductor) a singer (male voice since Maria Republica counted 6 female roles against only one small male role) and an innovative technological device allowing me to continue to develop what had been achieved for the previous opera.
If the proposal that was made to me by Catherine Kollen and the Arcal answered all of my concerns stated above, there remained however the central question of the libretto and the dramaturgical context to be treated. This essential question, however, remained rather vague for me until Catherine's proposal to work on The Jekyll Case .
I did not know the very beautiful text by Christine Montalbetti , I must admit that I did not know that this text had been repeatedly performed and staged in the theater by Denis Podalydès and I therefore read this text without any a priori with for one and only concern: can this text become an opera? The answer is yes !
There are immemorial es in the field of opera, the theme of the double being one of them ( Mozart's Cosi fan tutte to cite just one prestigious example). It will therefore be for me to explore this theme with my musical means. In this I will continue and deepen what I have already approached in my instrumental music : Reading of a wave where the flutist multiplies in five reflections of herself, Oxymore, solo for two percussionists . I also dealt with this subject in my ballet Les Arpenteurs (final scene where a cell multiplies infinitely on itself) as well as furtively in Maria Republicawhere in painting 7 Maria "splits herself" thanks to technology.
A string quartet is already a priori a formation that carries within it the temptation of duplication. The technological means associated with the baritone voice and this instrumental formation seem to me to constitute a promising palette for meeting Jekyll and therefore also Hyde...
