Writing an opera is a big deal—even for Philippe Leroux. He’s been teaching composition at Â鶹AV for more than a decade, and his catalogue spans almost eighty works for voices, instruments, orchestras, electronics and more. But even for an artist who’s constantly innovating, opera was something new.
Commissioned by Angers Nantes OpĂ©ra and partners, Philippe Leroux’s first-ever opera is called ł˘â€™A˛Ô˛Ô´Ç˛Ôł¦±đ faite Ă Marie. It’s based on Paul Claudel’s play of the same name, a story where miracles of faith coexist with the harsh realities of human nature. Adapting the play and composing the opera took three years, but last fall, ł˘â€™A˛Ô˛Ô´Ç˛Ôł¦±đ received its spellbinding premiere at the OpĂ©ra de Nantes.
The opera has since toured across France, captivating audiences and critics alike. It also won the grand prize for best show of the year from the Syndicat de la critique dramatique in France. Scroll all the way down for the trailer, which gives a glimpse of this hauntingly beautiful production. You can even watch the whole thing for free with Â鶹AV’s subscription to .
It’s rare for a new work to get so much exposure so quickly, and since it was composed by one of our own, we had to get the whole story! We interviewed Philippe about his process, his music, and all the things that happen behind the scenes of a major premiere—the teamwork, the inspiration, and the moments of musical connection.
Le Monde called ł˘â€™A˛Ô˛Ô´Ç˛Ôł¦±đ faite Ă Marie a “groundbreaking opera whose watchword is always emotion.” So what emotions are behind ł˘â€™A˛Ô˛Ô´Ç˛Ôł¦±đ? What moved you to create your first opera, and on this theme?
First of all, the musical emotions linked to the movements of human passions (love, jealousy, cowardice, faith) which are very strong in the libretto taken from the play by Paul Claudel. Then another type of emotion, more spiritual, such as the self-giving of the heroine or the resurrection of the little girl. And all these emotions are carried by an immense literary, poetic and dramatic quality. I had wanted to write an opera for a long time, but I was waiting to find the text that suited me, and for that I had to wait almost 30 years. In Claudel’s play, there is everything I needed to launch into such a project: passion, drama, spirituality and great poetry.
It takes a lot of different people to make an opera, and you were surrounded by an incredible team: director, conductor, librettist, singers, instrumentalists, commissioners and more. What is it that you think makes such meaningful collective music-making possible?
The most important thing is that there is a mutual respect between the person composing and the person directing. That’s the starting point! And then after that, it is necessary that everyone is convinced and adheres to the music and the project. This takes time and patience, because at the beginning, nobody has a really clear idea of the nature of the global artistic project, but as soon as the performers start to understand the music and the director’s intentions, it’s won. An opera is a common work, everyone plays a role, and none of them are insignificant.
What do you hope audiences experience when they hear your work?
Firstly, pleasure: pleasure of the sound, of the beautiful voices, of the discovery of new vocalities, of the instrumental richness, of the acting of the singers and of the dramaturgy, then of the emotion we have just spoken about, and finally of the intelligence. By intelligence, I mean that spectators can experience a musical discourse that is both logical and full of surprises at the same time. And that these surprises astonish them while preserving the coherence of the whole. I try to involve listeners in the musical and dramatic flow, so that they understand the sequence of musical events and adhere to it. But what I want most is for the audience to feel the emotions of the characters in depth, through the music.
How do you convey emotions in your music?
Many musical elements create emotion: the relationship between the words, the characters’ affects and their vocal lines, the harmony through the chord colours or the tensions it creates, the dynamic contrasts; sometimes simple vocal intonations can produce a striking effect on the public. For me, it is not a question of manipulating the audience, but rather of associating them with the dramatic activity, of making them witnesses to the emotions that the characters are experiencing, so that they make these emotions their own.
What’s the hardest part about composing an entirely new piece?
For an opera, it is first of all the quantity of work. It took me three years to compose L’annonce faite à Marie, and believe me, I didn’t drag it out. And then, there is the blank page… Composing is not filling in a questionnaire or ticking boxes, you have to be constantly on the cutting edge of your possibilities and inspiration, to offer the public a strong and new work. This requires an extraordinary continuous effort, perhaps comparable to some extent to what a top athlete experiences during major competitions. To go as far as possible, as high as possible… every day for three years.
When you’re faced with obstacles or uncertainty, how do you keep moving forward?
You have to have faith, to sincerely believe that this opera can do good for the public, that it is necessary for the world, even if at first only we believe in it. There are times when you simply have to go ahead without thinking. Avoid the moods where we tell ourselves that we are great or bad, just work. And when we can’t move forward, we have to go around the problem, change the angle of view, in order to unblock the situation. Or simply make a tea or go for a walk!
What was on your playlist while composing?
In fact, when I compose, I listen to very little music, because I want to keep my ears fresh. But there are always moments of relaxation when I put on a record of medieval music (the Great Book of Santiago de Compostela for example), or classical music (Mahler’s piano quartet, a work from his youth), or world music (Papua New Guinea, Japan, Africa), or electroacoustic music (Zanesi, Bayle), and of course operas (from Mozart to Ligeti, through Puccini and Berg).
Finally, what advice would you give yourself as a younger composer?
I would tell myself to make sure that everything in my music is relationship. Music is above all relationship. Relationships between sounds and voices, between ideas, between intuition and construction, between form and material, between drama and poetry, and of course between composer, performer and audience. To compose is to enter into this movement where everything is linked, where nothing exists alone, where the smallest sound event has an impact on the next one, and where the person who composes offers the audience a new world, full of correspondences between feelings and sound sensations.
L’annonce faite à Marie (2019–2022)
Opera in four acts and a prologue, for six voices, eight instruments and electronics. Libretto by Raphaèle Fleury, adapted from ł˘â€™A˛Ô˛Ô´Ç˛Ôł¦±đ faite Ă Marie by Paul Claudel.
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