1. Dieu Bleu – Reynaldo Hahn
2. Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel – Jean Cocteau, Le Groupe des Six
3. Impressions de Music Hall – Gabriel Pierné
Based on an idea by Christophe Mirambeau
Les Frivolités Parisiennes Orchestra
Musical direction | Dylan Corlay
Visual creation | Thomas Israël
Directing | Maxime Le Gall
Actors | Camille Brault, Maxime Le Gall
With
Les Frivolités Parisiennes Orchestra
When
2023
Where
- Maison de la danse de Soisson
- Theatre Impérial de Compiègnes
My input
Stage design & video
Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel
Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel is a collective ballet by Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre (five of the members of the Groupe des Six), to a libretto by Jean Cocteau. The show features two narrators. The ballet was first performed in Paris, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in 1921.
I created a whole retro-futuristic comic-book universe, in phase with the technophile surrealism of Cocteau’s writing, to bring to life a bevy of characters present only on screen or sometimes “mixed” with the actors. They act with their heads while I animate their bodies. All this thanks to a wide range of artificial intelligence tools, as well as ancestral guignole techniques.
Le Dieu Bleu
For Reynaldo Hahn’s sublime Dieu Bleu, I used artificial intelligence to create a moving oil painting to revive an extraordinary score, forgotten for over 100 years!
“A successful video counterpoint
Let’s embark on a dream, we say: the video part, by Thomas Israël, will have greatly contributed to this, with a visual counterpoint that is suggestive, relevant and never intrusive”. Alain COCHARD in concertclassic.com
In a fantasized India, a young Hindu is about to become a priest. A young girl in love with him interrupts the rite that is supposed to consecrate him. The high priest condemns her to be handed over to the monsters of the temple. The young girl invokes the Goddess, who makes the Blue God appear. Monsters are chased away, lovers are united.
Impression de Music Hall
Offset, nostalgia and humor were my guides for this creation paying tribute to the Music Hall of the early 20th century.
“(…) In an entirely different aesthetic, the video artist is no less at one with the rest of the program, responding with a very “Années folles” imaginary to Gabriel Pierné’s Impressions de music-hall, a ballet again, first performed at the Paris Opéra in 1927.” Alain COCHARD in concertclassic.com
Passionate about the circus and music-hall, Pierné pays a vibrant tribute to his two passions in these Impressions de Music-hall, premiered at the Paris Opéra in April 1927. Since the end of the Great War, the so-called “frivolous” genres have acquired their letters of nobility: Cocteau, the musicians of the Groupe des Six, Ravel, etc. have assumed their influence and praised their creative vitality.
