Artistic vision
A century of reinterpretation
Adapting the an ancient greek classic, Cocteau’s 1922 Paris theatre production brought together sets by Pablo Picasso, costumes by Coco Chanel and incidental music by Honegger under the direction of Charles Dullin. Honegger’s opera followed in Brussels on December 28, 2027 and the Paris premiere in 1943 under German occupation.
With the added urgency of the opera’s centenary, this project continues the practice of bringing an inherited story into the artistic language of its own time. Its questions remain immediate: who may exercise power, what an individual owes to family and community, and what happens when legal authority and conscience become irreconcilable.
Time to listen, understand and feel
Cocteau and Honegger compress a complex family catastrophe into eleven scenes across three acts. Short gestures, abrupt transitions and a rhythmically precise orchestration give the work extraordinary intensity. The new version creates room within that intensity: a memory can return, an action can resonate, and an impeding tragedy can become audible before the next scene begins.
New passages grow from the material of the surrounding scenes. A motif is varied, harmonically reframed or broken into its sonic components. An instrumental gesture continues electronically after its acoustic source falls silent; an electronic texture gradually acquires definition and becomes a notated instrumental figure. These connections form a network of memories, premonitions and consequences across the evening.
Giving the unseen a presence
Electronics and AI-powered sound transformation place these human conflicts within a shifting sonic environment, making the higher powers that constrain the characters’ choices perceptible through changes in resonance, space and stability.
For this, Honegger’s dry textures and machine-like rhythmic energy provide the starting point. Acoustic instruments and electronics blend into a shared vocabulary, allowing the boundary between a source and its transformation to remain fluid. A sound can persist beyond its natural duration, subtly disturb a dialogue or alter the listener’s sense of distance.