Lyrique en Mer : Soirée Opéra : Ravel / Bizet

Maurice Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges (The Child and the Spells), a unique work in the French operatic repertoire, with a libretto by Colette, unfolds a world as poetic as it is fantastical, where objects, animals, and the elements come to life to confront a mischievous child with his own cruelty. Between dream, nightmare, and enchantment, the opera traverses a multitude of musical moods with remarkable freedom and inventiveness, alternating humor, tenderness, strangeness, and emotion. For this production, the festival presents the chamber version conceived by Didier Puntos for the Lyon Opera's Young Artists Program in 1989. Far more than an orchestral reduction, this transcription subtly reveals all the modernity and richness of Ravel's writing, while offering a new intimacy with the singers and the stage. Supported by this inventive and intimate instrumental ensemble, the work gains in fluidity, transparency, and theatricality. This version also allows for a particularly imaginative stage approach: the opera's magical and fantastical world opens up a vast field of possibilities for staging, where metamorphoses, plays on scale, illusions, and wonder can unfold with poetry and creativity. More than a century after its creation in Monte Carlo in 1925, L'Enfant et les Sortilèges remains a profoundly relevant work, celebrating the imagination of childhood while subtly exploring themes of solitude, healing, and learning empathy. With members of Lyrique-en-Mer Opera Studio. DON PROCOPIO by Georges Bizet. Composed in 1859 while the twenty-year-old Bizet was staying at the Villa Medici, Don Procopio is a light and sparkling opera in the tradition of bel canto and Italian comedy. Inspired by Donizetti's Don Pasquale and influenced by Rossini, it blends social satire with musical vivacity. The plot, set in Naples, tells the story of a young woman who thwarts the plans of her uncle, who wants to marry her off to a miserly old man to preserve his fortune. She seeks to ridicule the conspirators to impose her own destiny, in a joyful denouement. Denis Mignien transposes the action to 1950s Italy, the era of La Dolce Vita, bringing a touch of modernity while respecting the humor and contrasts of the work: the clash between exuberant youth and the conservative values of the older generation. François Bernard's musical adaptation, for five instrumentalists and six soloists, delicately captures the richness and lightness of Bizet's score. With its brisk pace and comical situations worthy of the Commedia dell'arte, Don Procopio is a refreshing and charming rediscovery. “This rediscovery of Don Procopio is a truly precious gift: a rare opera, a contagious sense of ensemble, and a spirited production. The Variétés lyriques remind us how Bizet’s lightness, verve, and theatrical flair were already evident at the age of twenty, and how this music, written under the Italian sun, still retains its youthful brilliance today.” Clément Mariage – Forum Opéra

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