Les aventures du Baron de Münchhausen by Various, Wed 13 Apr 2022, From (2022/2022), Directed by Patrice Thibaud, Conductor Hervé Niquet, Théâtre Municipal Raymond Devos, Tourcoing, France

With his trip to the moon on a cannonball, or his exit from quicksand and that of his horse by lifting himself by the hair, the Baron of Münchhausen is part of the Germanic heritage. He has become a legendary figure like our Cyrano de Bergerac or the Sapeur Camembert in France. It is a universal work, an extremely funny great fantasy, which appeals to the soul of a child and to the need for transgression present in each of us. I want to illustrate these adventures, to reiterate the success of The Imaginary Opera for which we had reconstructed an opera in two acts from around thirty works by different authors. The music of the Regency, from Philippe d'Orléans until the beginning of the reign of Louis XV, would form, among other things, a rather formidable musical medium to illustrate and reinvent the history of the Baron. I imagine the story brilliantly commented on by an actor and set to music by the best Baroque composers, performed by around twenty artists from the Concert Spirituel troupe. A big kid's dream come true.