The newest opera from Pascal Dusapin, Penthesilea, will have its world premiere at La Monnaie in Brussels in March 2015. Now a suite for mezzo and orchestra derived from this work will be heard in Tokyo this summer. The suite, titled Wenn du dem Wind . . . (If You Listen to the Wind . . .), will be performed by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra with Alexander Liebreich conducting at Suntory Hall in Tokyo on August 21, 2014.

From Pascal Dusapin:

“The theme treated by this famous play by Kleist is the irreconcilable conflict between a powerful personal emotion and a social order that excludes natural feelings. Going against all the sacred laws of the Amazons, Queen Penthesilea falls in love with Achilles, hero of the war against Troy. Thus, if she wants to be free to love him, Penthesilea must first vanquish Achilles.

Deceived by the latter, who lets her believe that she has triumphed over him in battle, Penthesilea, mad with rage and pain at having betrayed the trust of her people, throws herself on him with her dogs and tears him apart with an animal frenzy.

After writing the opera, I made a suite for mezzo-soprano and orchestra that combines three roles: those of Penthesilea, the servant Prothoe and the Priestess. In this very particular exercise for a composer, the problem is how to render the dramatic substance of the three voices in one alone and at the same time how to preserve the line that is essential for the voice.

Beate Haeckl, my co-librettist on the opera Penthesilea, and I brought together and adapted for this suite the Prologue and scenes 2 and 4, which set the scene for this irreconcilable drama between love and law.

Wenn du dem Wind… begins with a very simple, child-like melody, almost gauche. In the opera Penthesilea, this children’s song also appears, like a Leitmotif, recurring always transformed but immediately recognisable.

Because when we suffer, we become once again like a child …“

Photo: Philippe Gontier