Juliette ou la Clé des Songes
Opera
11 March 2025
Michel, a travelling salesman, discovers a young woman in a small coastal town in the south of France and the memory haunts him. Eventually he decides to return to the town to find her.
Inspired by a drama by the surrealist poet Georges Neveux, Martinů's Juliette ou la Clé des songes explores questions of love and memory, in a world where memories can be bought from a shopkeeper! With poignant poetry, the Czechoslovak composer probes the intricacies of the human psyche, questioning the boundaries between reality and dream, playing on different levels of consciousness to question our relationship to the world and to each other. It's a rare opera, full of raw sensitivity, tenderness and humanity, a far cry from the usual surrealist poches.
Playing the roles of Michel and Juliette are two of the most promising artists of the younger generation, Ilona Revolskaya and Valentin Thill, conducted by one of the finest specialists in the 20th century repertoire, Anthony Hermus. The production is directed by two artists who are now well known to our company: Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Delœuil.