L’Écume des Jours by Edison Denisov from Lille Opera on OperaVision

 

I do not usually review anything outside of direct experience. Theatre, opera, and concerts, yes, because they are experienced at firsthand. I make an exception for books, because reading is so personal that each different reader may find a different world within pages visited by others. Film, recordings and television I regard as packaged and, though I might record what I have seen, I do not write reviews. There are exceptions, notably the operas Eros and Psyche by Rosicky and Von Einem’s Der Prozess - The Trial, both of which were live performances made available by the wonderful work of OperaVision. The exception has come around again, this time in the form of Denisov’s L’Écume des Jours, an opera also broadcast by OperaVision.

Premiered in 1986, Opera de Lille recently presented the work, and it is available on the OperaVision website until September 2026. I encourage opera lovers everywhere to try it, and anyone interested in contemporary music should make a make a point of listening, perhaps on several occasions.

Edison Denisov’s music does not have many performances in the concert halls of western Europe and North America. Personally, I can see a straight line of influence through the twentieth century – the Soviet century – starting with Shostakovich, continuing through Schnittke and terminating with Denisov. Seen together, the work of these three composers seems to illustrate the history and fate of the Soviet Union from its creation to its demise. Right from the Symphony No1 of Dmitri Shostakovich, with its almost confident modernity anticipating the Constructivism in art that would follow, through to the disparate multiplicity of style and form that characterizes Denisov’s music, there was generally an increasing loss of confidence in the ideal and increasing resort to cynicism on behalf of the composers in order to express what they were feeling.

Listen, for instance, to each composer’s first symphony, and compare them. As recently mentioned, Shostakovich was generally upbeat, though as a composer he was never particularly optimistic. Later, always prone to pastiche, in his case circus, music and jazz often invade the gloom, the first symphony limits itself to what might be achieved by a young genius. It is forward looking, if not quite confident.

Contrast that with the first symphony of Arnold Schnittke. The vision is equally grand, but now there is evidence of cynicism, some use of the random, inclusion of electronics and frequent use of popular forms, though these are generally integrated and interwoven. There is less confidence than in Shostakovich and more cynicism, but the overall impression is that the individual can still make a contribution, though the outlook is bleak.

In Denisov’s first symphony, equally grand in vision as the two already mentioned, it seems that recognizable forms and shapes have been subsumed into confusion, a thoroughly competent confusion where the composer can express what he wishes but cannot settle mentally into a particular style or groove. Everything is disparate – at least on the surface. The concerns of previous generations of composers are still there are still here, but they are packaged together, as if the composer cannot decide what should take precedence. The despair seems here closer to the surface, the energy of cynicism that both Shostakovich and Schnittke is here dissipated to despair. It sounds as if Edison Denisov lacks the commitment to espouse as a particular style and consciously dithered the sound.

And said we come to L’Écume des Jours in the production by Opera Lille. Based on Boris Vian’s surrealist novel Froth On The Daydream, we meet Chloë, who is clearly not well. She turns to Isis, her friend and lover, and pleads for one last chance to meet a boy and be happy. Such a boy appears in the shape of Colin. Chloë and Colin hit it off, though Chloë has to disguise herself in a pink dress and wear a wig to hide the fact that she that her treatment has caused her to lose her hair. Chloë is in fact suffering from water lily in the lung and her treatment is to be surrounded with flowers.

Serious surreal encounters ensue, which involve mice, people emitting smoke, a doctor who prepares a treatment by severing his own tongue and piercing his own arm, a character who cuts off his arm with a knife, and various other visual treats.

Initially, the flights of fancy are vaguely shocking and part humorous, but as the opera progresses, they become darker and more threatening. A real crucified Christ appears regularly, accompanied by his own choir, and a character called Alise asserts her substantial presence on the proceedings.

The opera’s denouement is a lethal injection for Chloë to end her suffering, and we are left at the end with Isis, Chloë and Colin reclining on a hospital bed, with Chloë dying But with Isis placed centrally, we realise that she is suffering the most. The opera seems to be saying that the real suffering is felt by those who experience bereavement, not death.

Denisov’s music is perfect for the scenario. It comes and goes, makes its point, then disappears. When popular forms appear, they threaten rather than or relieve. Eventually, these characters are tossed around by events like rudderless boats in a storm. They are part of and party to the events, but they are never in control. Chloë is dying, Colin, to some extent, exists only because Chloë wished him to. It is Isis, the person in the middle of the love triangle who suffers, and it is she who is alive and will continue to live. The shortest straw, perhaps.

L’Écume des Jours is a rarity. Opera lovers should give it a go. Do not be daunted by the apparent disconnectedness of most of the music. After two hours, it will all make sense in the sense that it remains nonsense. The above is what I took from the experience in a single sitting. There will be more.

Bassem Akiki conducts and the direction of Anna Smolar is amazing.  Josefin Feiler, Cameron Becker, Katia Ledoux, Elmar Gilbertsson, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Natasha Te Rupe Wilson, Robin Neck, Maurel Endong, Matthieu Lécroart have important parts in the cast. Do experience L’Écume des Jours on OperaVision.

Saariaho's La Passion de Simone

It's a comment both on current availability and prevailing mentality that I choose to write a piece about a television experience, albeit via the internet. There are not many concerts around during this year of lock down.

The broadcast in question was courtesy of Operavision and, given rules on social mixing around Europe at the time of the recording - last October - it is no surprise it came from Sweden. It was a performance of the oratorio La Passion de Simone, based on the writings of Simone Weil composed by Kaija Saariaho on text by Amin Maalouf. This is a piece for orchestra, chorus and soprano that its composer describes both as an oratorio and an opera. The latter is stretching concepts, because there is only one character and no action. There are also electronics, which extend further than the taped quotations from Simone Weil's work that mark the movements, to include at various points augmentation to the orchestral sounds in order to change textures, add depth or surprise.

The structure is fifteen movements, each representing one station of the cross, the whole representing a passion play. The underpinning idea is that the life and work of mystic, political thinker and philosopher, Simone, Weil, was like that of a modern Christ, who gave her life to identify the shortcoming in the rest of humanity. This does not seem to come across in the music, perhaps because, in updating the idea, Saariaho and Maalouf have completely transformed the image into something both contemporary and unfamiliar.

Simone Weil was academically successful, a classmate of Simone de Beauvoir, and one time Marxist. She was born into a middle-class professional Jewish family and excelled from the start, but not in the realm of health. And her eyesight was none too good…

She took a job in a factory at one stage to fully understand what it was to be a worker. She took up arm on behalf of the anarchists in Spain, before her comrades took the rifle away from her on account of her eyesight’s inability to aim it. She had always had a “spiritual” streak, it seems, and later on went on to formulate a pantheistic version of Christianity, apparently rejecting her Judaism. She eventually, aged 34, finished up in hospital in Britain with tuberculosis. And died. The judgment was that she had in fact starved herself to death. The basis of Saariaho’s piece is that this was an act of personal sacrifice to atone for the sins of humanity.  The case is made.

Saariaho's music is all about timbre and texture. It tends to sound one paced, though it rarely is. It deceptively seems to offer a wall of experience but close up that expanse of sound comprises many miniscule shards. The chorus acts like a commentator, not quite like an evangelist as in Bach, but always playing a secondary role compared to the presence of the soprano soloist. The principal character is not only the voice of Simone Weil, but also a commentary on her writing, an interpreter, sometimes even a third person critic, probably the voice of the author. And Sophie van Otter's performance is so good it is impossible to describe. One aspect of the text which I do not understand is the repeated references to Simone as if the narrator is a younger sister. Simone had no younger sister, so this is perhaps the personification of the rest of humanity who have adopted her as a sibling in gratitude to her gesture of solidarity.

But overall, as so often with Saariaho, we are left with a sense of something having passed us by, greeted us perhaps, held our attention for its duration, but without ever really revealing itself to us. It may be an enigmatic style, but it may also be something deeply personal, as the composer revealed in the barely comfortable interview that followed. It may be shyness, a desire to remain apart, removed from direct contact. It was also revealing to hear the composer say that this was only the work’s second production in 14 years.