Opéra - I Didn’t Know Where To Put All My Tears / Curlew River de Marko Nikodijevic / Benjamin Britten

Orchestra of the Opéra national de Nancy-Lorraine
Opéra national de Nancy-Lorraine chorus and women's chorus of Ensemble Le Balcon

Musical director and harmonium: Alphonse Cemin
Stage direction: Silvia Costa

Truth or illusion, life or death... where do the boundaries lie when a person tips over into madness? Inspired by Noh theater, where all roles, even the female ones, are played by men, Benjamin Britten imagines Curlew River as a parable of a woman recounting the disappearance of her son, her "madness" gradually becoming the expression of an inner strength.

Silvia Costa imagines this piece as a diptych with the world premiere by Serbian composer Marko Nikodijevic as part of the opera creation laboratory, NOX (Nancy Opera Xperience). Substituting a female chorus for the male chorus, this work recounts the origins of the mysterious river: a woman digs into the earth with her hands, depositing tears, giving life to the river as a place to mourn her own destiny.

The director, who also wrote the libretto, brings the two narratives into dialogue in a staging inspired by the codes of Japanese theater, where purity, abstraction and silence become powerful vectors of emotion.

Tickets available online.

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