Singing & dancing: Théophile ALEXANDRE I Musical Direction: Quatuor ZAÏDE I Arrangements: Eric MOURET I Stage direction: Pierre-Emmanuel ROUSSEAU I Choreography: Béatrice WARRAND I Movie direction: Manon GICQUEL I Conception & Artistic direction: Emmanuel GREZE-MASUREL

CREATION & TOUR 21/22
– Avant-premières at the International String Quartet Festival of the Luberon and International in July 21 and at the Pamiers Pro-Musica Festival in November 21.
– Première at the Volcan, national stage from Le Havre the 18th of Jan 22, then in the Edwige Feuillère Theater from Vesoul the 20th of Jan 22, in Courbevoie Theater the 08th of Feb 21, the Marcoussis Theater the 15th of Feb 22, the Limoges Opéra the 18th of Feb 22, the Tangram, national stage from Evreux the 18th of March 22.
NEW TOUR 22/23 TO COME.

No(s) Dames (Our/No Ladies) were created to honour the heroines of four centuries of masculine operas, in order to celebrate their musical beauty while deconstructing their gender roles. Indeed, in this patriarchal heritage, the role of women is at the very least ambiguous, combining the sumptuous and the monstrous, divine arias and mistreating roles. Under all the velvet and the gildings, the diva aria often signals impending death, the woman is a queen only in the arena, pretended to be adored when she is more « matadored », as if it were madly romantic to equate ‘dames’ and ‘dramas’; as if for them, love could only be orchestrated to death under the wand of these gentlemen… Dame! By forcing his male words in your mouth, the librettist of Carmen had warned you: “If I love you, beware!”.

In the face of the deceitfulness of this heritage, what to do? “Prima la musica” and turn a blind eye to the rest? Rewrite the librettos? Warn the spectator that the masculine work presented reflects an era advocating values that are unconscionable today?…
We have chosen to reverse the traditional roles, by redistributing for the first time the musical direction to a quartet of women and the Ladies’ agonies to a man, in order to universalize these arias and make them live as allegories of human sufferance rather than gender ill-fates reserved to women.

In 2022, here are No(s) Dames: a genderless reinterpretation of 23 operatic icons and their series of multiple massacres; 23 stereotypes of madonnas, bitches and witches, inverted then assembled in a surreal musical collage. In No(s) Dames, Manon’s farewell then blends with that of Violetta ; Marie’s dreams of escape echoe Amina’s nightmares; Giulietta, Carmen and Maria become a sole temptress; Armide’s hysteria bodes Alcina’s fall…!
By connecting these women substitutes in their morbid sisterhood, No(s) Dames plays to the exquisite corpse, underlining the repetition of tragic destinies for these masculine heroines and drawing in undertones the portrait of a one and only idol: the DAME, as fantasized, created and imposed on women by men throughout centuries or continents.

Musically, we chose to give the arrangements of these macabre rituals to the talented Eric Mouret, with the crazy mission of transforming these epics for soprano and orchestra into quintets for string instruments and countertenor voice! Worse, we wanted to keep their orchestral flamboyance whilst injecting our chamber music intimacy. And even worse, we wanted to turn the Barcarolle into a tango that announces Carmen; give back to Juliette the original cords of her theme already written by Bellini in Adelson e Salvini; cut variations of the I masnadieri prelude or of Joan of Arc to tighten the argument.

There followed 9 months of creative laboratories to bring to life the unity of sound of No(s) Dames, while playing with the juxtaposition of styles to create an extreme contrast in between all our reinterpretations.
For the string instruments: from stretching to the maximum the bel canto to the baroque attacks that snap like consonants; from the «lush» sound of the old Hollywoodian violins in Youkali to the shrillness of Alcina, resembling the lacerations in Psycho; from the brutality of the “sidewalk” wind instruments of Maria to the possessed agoges of Salome…
For the voices: from the deprivation of Manon to Zaïde’s revolt; from the dreamy nostalgia of Marie to the maternal despair of Norma; from the gutturalness of the suburbs of Maria to the tightrope vocality of Amina…

For each one, we wanted to give a meaning to the sound and re-humanize these arias – an endeavour that can’t be separated from the articulateness of the text, as in songs -, thus excluding the whirls of colora(tor)tura in these high pitches where the language is no longer humanly possible.
For all of them, we wanted to explore the strength of the feminine and the fragility of the masculine, as opposed to all caricatures, by playing on the ambiguity of the countertenor’s voice and the earthbound strength of our strings’ matrix. Last but not least : we wanted the sound recording to be raw, unvarnished, with an intimate proximity, to better tell you the truth of each story under the sublime of the music.

On a more personal level, No(s) Dames is for us a project of maturity: artistic already, by asserting ourselves more as artists than performers, with this creative audacity and that quest for meaning that both challenge the status quo – especially in classical music where restitution is most important – without daring to question too much the substance of what we are restituting; human maturity as well, by assuming our responsibilities, in particular that of conscientiously choosing what we in turn transmit to our children who ask us at the opera: «Tell me mom, tell me dad, why is the lady screaming? Why is she crying? Why is she dying ». We no longer want to answer: «Because a man loves her…».

So… are No(s) Dames feminists? They are above all humanists, since untying the corsets of gender is left up to all of us, women and men united, so each one of us will be respected. In that sense, No(s) Dames is a lyric manifest of love, empathy and collective hope: raising fists but holding hands, and now on reaching out to you.

Théophile & the Zaïde.

1. SOLVEIG: forsaken I Grieg & Ibsen, Peer Gynt (1875), « Solveigs sang »

Peer Gynt marries Solveig but abandons her to travel the world and chase women. She faithfully waits for him for 30 years. Ruined, tired and dishonored, he’ll come back to die in her arms, seeking for redemption.

2. EURIDICE: in hell I Gluck & De Calzabigi, Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), « Che fiero momento »

Harrassed by a sheperd on her wedding day, Euridice flees but dies, bitten by a snake. Amor allows Orpheus to save her from the Underworld if he doesn’t look at her. But in the face of her incomprehension, he turns around and she dies again.

3. AMINA: possessed? I Bellini & Romani, La sonnambula (1831), « Ah non credea mirarti »

Engaged to Elvino, Amina is courted by Rodolfo, and Elvino finds her asleep in his rival’s room. Mad with rage, he breaks up their engagement to marry Lisa, before realising Amina is in fact a sleepwalker.

4. JOAN: burnt alive I Tchaïkovski, La Pucelle d’Orléans (1878), « Adieu forêts »

Joan of Arc leads France to victory against the English, but falls in love with Lionel Bourguignon, fighting for the enemy. She does not defend herself when accused of witchcraft by her own father, and is burnt alive.

5. GIULIETTA: poisoned I Offenbach & Barbier, Hoffmann’s tales (1881), « Barcarolle »

Giulietta is a venetian courtesan who seduces Hoffmann and tries to steal his reflection. Incomplete, the work has two possible endings: either Hoffmann tries to stab her, or she is poisoned (the Richard Bonynge version).

6. CARMEN: stabbed I Bizet, Meilhac & Halévy, Carmen (1875), « L’Amour est un oiseau rebelle »

Carmen, a gypsy cigar maker, sets her sights on Don José while the toreador Escamillo also courts her. After months of quarreling with Don José, she chooses Escamillo. Mad with jealousy, Don José stabs her.

7. MARIA: shot dead I Piazzolla & Ferrer, María de Buenos Aires (1968), « Yo soy María »

A factory worker who tastes glory in cabarets then downfall in a brothel, María is wounded by a gunshot and dies cursed, condemned to haunt the streets of Buenos Aires, chased by the Tango spirit.

8. AMALIA: stabbed I Verdi & Maffei, I Masnadieri (1847), Prelude

Francesco betrays Carlo in order to steal his fiancée and to take power. Carlo becomes a brigand, finds back Amalia, who agrees to marry him. However, faithful to his brigand oath, he prefers to stab her and surrenders.

9. ZAÏDE: death sentence I Mozart & Schachtner, Zaïde (1780), « Tiger! Wetze nur die Klauen »

In love, the slaves Zaïde and Gomatz flee from the Sultan’s jealousy with the help of Allazim but are condemned to death. Allazim implores pardon for them. The unfinished opera does not say if it will be granted.

10. MEDEA: infanticide I Cavalli & Cicognini, Il Giasone (1649), « Dell’antro magico »

Jason is going to marry Dircé, but the magician Medea – who helped him in his quest for the Golden Fleece and had sons with him – raves with jealousy. She kills Dircé, stabs her own children, and is sent to hell.

11. NIGHT QUEEN: defeated I Mozart & Schikaneder, Die Zauberflöte (1791), « Der Hölle Rache »

Charged by the Queen to deliver Pamina from the tyrannical Sarastro, Tamino discovers that the Queen lied to him to take revenge on Sarastro. His journey leads him to love and light while the Night Queen is crushed.

12. JULIET: suicide I Bellini & Romani, I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830), « Oh! Quante volte »

The rival Capulets and Montagues witness their children fall in love. Juliet fakes her death to escape with Romeo. Unaware of the ploy, Romeo poisons himself. When she wakes up, Juliette stabs herself.

13. BARBARINA: deflowered? I Mozart & Da Ponte, Le nozze di Figaro (1786), « L’ho perduta »

Charged with carrying an invitation to Almaviva, the maid Barbarina must bring back the pin closing the letter as proof of his acceptance. But she loses it and mourns painfully, as if she had lost much more…

14. LEONORA: stabbed I Verdi & Piave, La forza del destino (1862), Prelude

Leonora loves Alvaro and flees with him. In their escape, Alvaro accidentally kills her father. Drunk with revenge, Carlo, her brother, pursues them. After an unsuccessful duel against Alvaro, he stabs his sister.

15. ARMIDA: abandoned I Haydn & Porta, Armida (1783), « Odio, furor, dispetto »

Sent by the Prince of Darkness to seduce the Christians of the First Crusade, the sorceress Armida falls in love with Rinaldo and spares him. Rinaldo destroys the myrrh tree, source of her powers and abandons her.

16. ALCINA: betrayed I Haendel & Broschi, Alcina (1735), « Ah mio cor »

The sorceress Alcina keeps bewitched men on her island, including Ruggiero. Freed from Alcina’s charms by his fiancée, he breaks the urn of her powers. Alcina is defeated, and her magical palace crumbles.

17. ANNA: suicide I Rossini & Della Valle, Maometto II (1820), « Giusto Ciel »

Anna is the daughter of the Governor at war with Maometto II. Her father wants her to marry Calbo, but she loves Uberto, who is in fact Maometto. Duped, she agrees to marry Calbo, but Maometto stalks her and she stabs herself.

18. SALOME: crushed I Strauss, Wilde & Lachmann, Salomé (1905), « Salomes Tanz »

Salome confesses her desire to Jochanaan, who rejects her. She asks for his head to Herod, who has sworn to fulfill her wish if she danced for him. When she kisses the decapitated head, Herod orders the guards to crush her.

19. MANON: exhausted I Massenet & Meilhac, Manon (1884), « Adieu notre petite table »

Sent to the convent, Manon falls in love with Des Grieux, and they flee to Paris. However, eager for luxury and lust, she is sentenced to be deported for prostitution, and dies of exhaustion on the way.

20. VIOLETTA: sick I Verdi & Piave, La Traviata (1853), « Addio del passato »

The courtesan Violetta is seduced by Alfredo for whom she leaves her misguided life and sells all her possessions. Fearing the scandal, Alfredo’s father begs her to quit his son. She accepts, and dies of tuberculosis.

21. NORMA: burnt alive I Bellini & Romani, Norma (1831), « Deh non volerli vittime »

The priestess Norma has broken her chastity vows and had children with Pollione. She discovers that he loves Adalgisa and threatens to denounce them but finally confesses her own fault, and is condemned to the stake.

22. DALILA: crushed I Saint-Saëns & Lemaire, Samson et Dalila (1877), Prelude

Prisoners, the Hebrews flee thanks to Samson. The priest of Dagon calls upon Dalila to steal the secret of his strength. Sent to prison, Samson is touched by faith, and causes the temple to collapse on Dalila and her people.

23. MARIE: shot dead I Weill, Deval & Fernay, Marie Galante (1933), « Youkali »

Marie is forcibly taken from Bordeaux to Panama as a sex worker. Exiled, she dreams of a return to her country but gets embroiled in shady affairs, and ends up dead of a gunshot.