Works

Music theatre based on Raymond Roussel. Libretto and adaptation by Georges Lavaudant and Daniel Loayza

Impressions d’Afrique is inspired by Raymond Roussel, the French writer who died in mysterious circumstances in Palermo in 1933.

A “vertical” text, with no diachronic narrative development, a sort of mental journey by an author whom the French surrealists acknowledged as a forerunner. Roussel himself is on stage among the various characters in the novel and is the work’s principal protagonist.

37 numbers, some musical and some theatrical, form the structure of Impressions d’Afrique, a “journey” that is also musical, with a strongly material character and a polystylistic dimension, an expanded sense of tonality and real songs which serve as intermezzos between the numbers.

The work employs a chamber instrumental ensemble, a chorus of 16 and 9 actors-characters amplified and modified by electronics.

Genre

Stage works

Year of composition

1999

Instrumentation

1.-.3.1. / 2.2.2.1 / 3 Perc, Kbd / Male chorus: 8 T, 8 B / Strings (minimum: 4.-.4.4.4)

Duration

1 hr(s) 30 min(s)

Language

it, fr, en, de

World premiere

14/05/2000

Ricordi catalogue number

138569
138569 – score
138570 – parts
138571 – reduction for voice & piano