At the Opéra-Comique, with “La Grande Affablulation”, the art of mastery in every way

Since 2023, the Maîtrise populaire of the Opéra-Comique in Paris has presented a show at the end of the season in which a large part of its members find the culmination of year-round training in singing, theater and dance. La Grande Affabulation is thus on the bill at the Salle Favart until May 16. Dramatically unprecedented, this creation imagined by Benjamin Lazar (text written in collaboration with the choir members, staging) and Geoffroy Jourdain (arrangements, musical direction) is not based on an entirely new score, as was the case in 2024 with Archipel(s) by Isabelle Aboulker, but on the vocal and instrumental adaptation of around fifteen works, from the Renaissance (Clément Janequin, Claude Le Jeune) to the present day (Terry Riley).

The story, which resembles a fantasy tale, is divided into five scenes. The protagonists of the show enter the stage in small groups for a rehearsal filmed by a reporter. Five teenagers revise a tap-dancing routine while other masters help each other to roll their "r"s or pronounce a famous verse by Ronsard ( "Mignonne allons vouair si la rrrose" ) as in the author's time. The music takes over with the polyphonic song composed in the ^16th century by Guillaume Costeley on the poem whose interlude preoccupied the children, in particular the future heroine of the fable (Astrid Gueritee-Petit) who also stumbles over the score.

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