“When the soprano Chantal Perraud asked me one day to write a small opera piece for her, with a small group of instruments, I immediately thought of using – at least in part – instruments that were different from the usual instrumentarium in concerts, such as the Armenian Duduk and the cymbalum, for example. This choice of instruments borrowed both from the East and from Central and Western Europe was obvious to me from my first reading of Christophe Hardy’s novel. It called for a different sound “colour”, one that would correspond to the timeless and geographically indeterminate character of this beautiful and cruel tale where violence finally gives way to the strength of resilience. Instruments from the four cardinal points intended to create a blurring of the listener’s perception and a permanent uncertainty of musical and cultural references. A sound world that retains a form of strangeness, at once familiar and from elsewhere, as if from a dream.
The work is dedicated to Chantal Perraud.”

Patrick Marcland