I Didn’t Know
Where To Put
All My Tears /
Curlew River

A river of no return

Truth or illusion, life or death... where are the boundaries when a person is plunged into madness? Inspired by Noh theatre, where all the roles, even the female ones, are performed by men, Benjamin Britten imagined Curlew River as the parable of a woman recounting her son's disappearance, her ‘madness’ gradually becoming the expression of an inner strength. 

Silvia Costa imagined this piece as a diptych with Serbian composer Marko Nikodijević's world premiere as part of the opera creation laboratory, NOX (Nancy Opera Xperience). Substituting a female chorus for the male one, this work recounts the origins of the mysterious river: a woman digs into the earth with her hands and the tears she sheds give life to the river as a place to mourn her own fate. 

The director, who also wrote the libretto, interweaves the two stories in a production inspired by the codes of Japanese theatre, where simplicity, abstraction and silence become powerful vectors of emotion.

‘Curlew River, smoothly flowing,
To the wide green sea,
Flow, flow, to the sea.’

A film, a book and a conference to delve deeper:

• Innocence (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2023): This film explores the complexity of children's relationships, adult responsibility and the blurred lines between victim and perpetrator. The film's subtle, fragmented narrative reveals a society that is quick to judge, where marginality and difference become suspect. Echoing Britten's opera, it shares the same search for redemption, examining inner suffering through a tale of silence and restraint. (Showing at the Cinéma Cameo Commanderie, more information here)
• Five Modern Noh (Yukio Mishima): An excellent gateway to the world of Noh theatre, whose structure and symbolic aesthetics are echoed in Curlew River (Gallimard, Du monde entier collection).
• What did Britten discover when he discovered Noh theatre? With Jean-Pierre Marchand, philosopher (art, architecture, aesthetics).
  Wed 11 March at 6pm at the Opéra. (more information here)