"le Diable Probablement", 1977

Analyse du thème et de la représentation du diable en littérature et dans les autres arts (peinture, sculpture…). Le diable a souvent fasciné, voire envoûté les artistes le représentant, sous différentes formes et noms.
Satan, Belzébuth, Lucifer…

Si Friedrich Nietzsche a pu, en son temps, déclarer « Dieu est mort », personne, à ce jour, à notre connaissance, ne s'est aventuré à proclamer la mort de Satan. Nous ne nous y risquerons pas. Nous nous contenterons d'évoquer sa haute figure dans ses métamorphoses, ses pompes et ses oeuvres. Et, en un prolongement dramatiquement logique, le bouc émissaire tout trouvé qu'est la femme. À l'heure où le féminisme prend un nouveau visage et s'incarne dans la figure mythique de la sorcière, il est essentiel de revenir sur le processus qui a conduit à cet état de fait : le Diable. …

A grand opera that dominated the stages of Europe for most of the 19th century, Robert le diable is a masterpiece. Director Laurent Pelly breathes new life into Giacomo Meyerbeer’s great spectacle and audaciously entertaining moral fable, in this colourful new staging for The Royal Opera. The wonderful score includes brilliant arias, dramatic ensembles, rousing choruses and a ballet of ghostly nuns, and with the wavering hero of the title sung by Bryan Hymel, acclaimed for his role as Énée in Les Troyens for The Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, this is an unmissable experience.

Recommended: not so much for the performance or even the work as for the experience. And even that is not necessarily something you will want to repeat very often. The point is that it may be now or never. Robert le diable, received triumphantly in Paris at its premiere in 1831, took centre- stage in the opera houses of Europe for two or three decades: a pantechnicon of an opera I was about to call it, and then thought to see what the dictionary had to say, finding there ‘the name of a bazaar of all kinds of artistic work’ – and the date 1830!

A grand opera that dominated the stages of Europe for most of the 19th century, Robert le diable is a masterpiece.
Director Laurent Pelly breathes new life into Giacomo Meyerbeer’s great spectacle and audaciously entertaining moral fable, in this colourful new staging for The Royal Opera. The wonderful score includes brilliant arias, dramatic ensembles, rousing choruses and a ballet of ghostly nuns, and with the wavering hero of the title sung by Bryan Hymel, acclaimed for his role as Énée in Les Troyens for The Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, this is an unmissable experience.