Premiered at GMEA Albi in early 2020, then performed at the Archipel festival in Geneva and at La Pop in Paris in autumn 2021, Un opéra modeste by Belgian composer and performer Myriam Pruvot captivated audiences with its great poetry and unique musical language, a blend of improvisation, celebration of oral tradition and chiselled writing. 

The lullaby is where it all began. The voice alone, an ancestral, unwritten melody passed down from mother to mother, from the corner of the cradle to the ears of children. The origin ofUn opéra modeste lies in the composer's fascination for this very modest musical form, with its mysterious origins and underestimated power.

The power of song

I was deeply influenced by reading the manifesto Lullabies and revolutions by Italian philosopher Giulia Palladini," recalls Myriam Pruvot. In it, she praises the power of these little songs, which are infused during the hours of sleep, and, because they have this capacity to convey and anchor ideas and feelings deep within us, have a terribly political dimension!" An avid reader, Myriam Pruvot is also inspired by her reading of Berceuses, based on Gabriel Garcia Lorca's famous 1928 lecture. In it, the Spanish poet sees the lullaby as a school of life, on the border between dream and reality.
Un opéra modeste was born out of a residency at the GMEA in Albi. From the outset, the form was conceived as a hybrid. It's a musical creation in two parts," explains Myriam Pruvot. A recorded radio play and a stage form. This one-of-a-kind chamber opera retains the marvellous flavour of the lullabies, the cousinship with the world of tales and fables: on stage, the performers will sing the musical tale of a world plunged into darkness, where only voices and sounds remain.

A text in three languages

As a sound artist, Myriam Pruvot began with the text. She wrote the song-poems that make up the play's five short acts in three languages: Italian, French and English, with translation help from two of the performers: Estelle Saignes Tilbury, who is Franco-American, and Ellen Giacone, of Italian origin. " I'm a self-taught composer, working with a computer, recording things, adjusting, in an empirical, instinctive and usually very solitary way. I think of musical sequences in terms of collages: I have a heterogeneous, unorthodox way of mixing materials." The artist therefore first thought out and wrote his story, imagining spaces, before starting work with the musicians. I immediately saw what the spatialization of sound could achieve," she explains. For example, I imagined certain sequences taking place in a salt quarry, with the sound projected onto it, a little like on the walls of an ancient cave...".

Into the twilight

As the opera unfolds, the voices speak and sing, but they are not alone. Myriam Pruvot's field recording, a protagonist in her own right, is added to the timbre of the performers, at times evoking the rustling of mysterious fauna, at others ominous science-fiction-like warnings, where technology seems to be on the verge of saturation, all forming a universe of multiple sono-temporal dimensions. The performers come together, seated in a circle around a microphone: it's a radio vigil in the half-light. Audience and performers take part in the same sensory experience: the disappearance of seeing.

Eyes wide shut

As Myriam Pruvot points out, "The work was first presented in a stage version, but was originally commissioned for radio. Hence the reflection, throughout Un opéra modeste, on what we don't see. Radio is a fascinating medium, and a place where women's voices, in particular, can really gain power. It's a risk-taking space, but also a safe place, I think, for voices that we're not used to hearing, that aren't given the chance to express themselves. Once we've got rid of the visuals, don't we finally see... more clearly? Radio discourse has this absolutely fascinating power to evoke and emancipate."

If the light has disappeared
then the wave is the focus
around which fiction, in song, encircles reality
it is from its vibration that spectra and functions are distributed
the prey on the lookout for information
from which music and language germinate
from fire comes story
from the wave extends the pulsating voice of things and woods

An explosive cast

"It was the very first time I'd worked with performers," confesses Myriam Pruvot. There are four of them at her side, including three women. "They all have atypical profiles! Valérie Leclercq is a singer-songwriter known under the pseudonym Half Alseep, but also... a doctor of medical history! Estelle Saignes Tilbury is a singer, visual artist and textile designer, while Jean-Baptiste Veyret Logerias is a choral conductor, choreographer and dancer. Finally, Ellen Giacone is a lyric singer and jazz bassist. " I don't come from classical music, I don't have the codes, I don't even come from music..." Myriam Pruvot almost apologizes. By music, I mean conservatory or, let's say, academic training. Indeed, Myriam Pruvot comes from the Beaux-arts and trained in improvisation and sound creation, preferring the byways to the institution. But a show is also about the people you don't see: on tour, the entireUn opéra modeste team includes Christophe Hauser for sound diffusion, and the lighting and set design were conceived in collaboration with Gregory Edelein. Oriane Leclercq designed the costumes.

Un Opera Modeste Festival Propagation GMEM 2022 from myriampruvot on Vimeo.

Temporal palimpsest

"I wanted to show the emergence of a sung narrative, born of a lullaby, a humming, new language arrangements." Over the course of the acts, performers and electronics sing a song of consolation, which we don't know if it comes from ancient, present or future times. Myriam Pruvot's influences include New Yorker Meredith Monk, whose bold vocal innovations and treatment of the voice she admires. Guillaume de Machaut, master of medieval polyphony, is another figure who also influenced Un opéra modeste. "The relationship with time that permeates all medieval poetics has fascinated me for years. When you hear the polyphonies of Guillaume de Machaut, you're left for a few moments undecided, time suspended: is this music from very ancient times? Or a terribly modern page, composed today? I like this floating, this ambiguity.

Children's voices

Albi, Geneva, Paris, Brussels, Marseille ? The play is always performed in situ," insists Myriam Pruvot. We rethink the scenic space to suit the location, and there's plenty of room for improvisation. Nothing is set in stone; what is written must remain alive and flexible. The very DNA ofUn opéra modeste lies in this art of metamorphosis.
The proof: the work is undergoing a new mutation, as Myriam Pruvot has just finalized a podcast version of her piece. "This podcast version of the opera comes after the stage version, but it was actually the starting point of the project! To fit in with this new form, this new medium, 100% virtual and radio-based, Myriam Pruvot has made a number of changes, not the least of which is that the piece is now sung by... children's voices! It was actually my first idea," she explains. I was thinking of children's voices, which is what the adjective 'modest' refers to. Children's voices are now interwoven with those of adults in the podcast version. "The adjective 'modest' refers to both the modest and the 'minor', as a mode and social status of children," Myriam Pruvot points out.

"The question of duration, temporality and narration is posed differently in a podcast version," explains the composer. So this lullaby-like opera is back soon, but sung by children... for adults? The podcast, which will be released next January on the RTBF website and then on podcast platforms, including the ACSR's Radiola, will also have another name: Onda & Storia, a title which means wave and narrative, in reference to a work of philosophy, Le feu et le récit by Giorgio Agamben.

Suzanne Gervais

Next in Myriam Pruvot's news
~ Podcasts
De pierres en étoiles - Production Théatre National Bruxelles
Onda & Storia
Production FACR & ACSR - project winner of the Phonurgia Nova Awards
~ Musical film
Antenae, commissioned by GMEA and Centre d'Art Le Lait, Al

Photo La jeune fille au micro © thomas jean henry
Photo © Myriam Pruvot