2023-07-04 19:00:13
George Benjamin, in London, in 2011. MATTHEW LLOYD
A major figure in today’s music, the composer and conductor George Benjamin (born in London in 1960) is distinguished by a powerfully expressive writing, a sonic sensuality and a formal subtlety in the service of a profoundly dramatic thought. Eleven years after the triumph of Written on Skin at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Briton, recipient this year of the prestigious Ernst von Siemens prize (the equivalent of the Nobel for musicians) returns to Provençal land for the creation of a new opus, Picture a Day Like This, an initiatory fable around the quest for happiness after the terrible tragedy of the death of a child. The production, the fourth in collaboration with playwright Martin Crimp, is presented at the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume from July 5 to 23. We caught up with George Benjamin in his Aix retreat a few days after the start of rehearsals.
After the dramatic power of “Written on Skin” (2012) and “Lessons in Love and Violence” (2018), you reconnect with the fantastic universe of your first opera, “Into the Little Hill” (2008). For what ?
Perhaps we wanted, with Martin, to bring a little consolation. Picture a Day Like This is both a fable and a fairy tale. A woman, who has lost her young son, goes in search of happiness. Her desire to save her child leads her to meet surprising and moving people, to confront very different worlds. In Written et Lessons, there was a tension that grew to the point of drama. This is not the case here since the drama has already taken place.
Read also the 2012 archive: The best opera written for twenty years?
This is your fourth opus with playwright Martin Crimp. How do you work together?
Before starting, we set up a framework, chose our directors and our musicians. But there is no fixed routine. For Into the Little Hill, we were distant (we didn’t know each other well). He wrote, I composed. No contact during the process. Gradually that changed. For Picture, I needed to talk to him every time the scene started. We are both of a very secretive nature. But I have great confidence in Martin, whose artistic integrity is total. Despite our great differences, I can’t imagine being able to establish a relationship like this with someone else.
For what ?
Because every word he writes is exclusively for me. And that we share the effort. When I met him, after so many fruitless attempts, I had almost given up on writing an opera. For twenty-five years, I had jotted down stories, plays, poems, films, shows, which could have been useful. I gave this list to Martin after our first meeting. Among the sixty subjects, there were The Pied Piper of Hamelin which became Into the Little Hill. Today, it has become a game between us. Even if Shakespeare walked into the play, it wouldn’t be the same.
You have 59.04% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#writing #takes #unknown #directions