Emotion and mathematics at the opera
-----------------------------------
Premiered at the Soirées lyriques du Ventoux in 2021, Évariste Galois ou la nuit tragique, an opera by the young Marseille composer Fabien Barcelo, caused a sensation. Mathematics rarely finds its way into opera! Yet that is precisely what its creator—both a singer (a baritone himself) and a composer—has done; he likes "rendering images, poetry and emotions".
The images come from the woodland setting of the tiny village of Saint-Léger-du-Ventoux in Vaucluse. The poetry emanates from its romantic hero: by turns a precocious genius, a revolutionary, a spurned lover and a martyr. The emotion lies in the music, which is tonal with modern inflections, yet classical in its use of the harp and oboe and in the melodic lines of its songs. Baritone Mikhael Piccone (Évariste Galois) has a voice that is sometimes bright, sometimes dark, reflecting the radiant or tragic moment. Soprano Chrystelle di Marco (Stéphanie) plays a treacherous woman with powerful high notes. We are moved from the deadly duel that opens the opera all the way back through time to the tragic night when Galois writes his unfinished mathematical testament. Galois, whose influence on mathematics would last forever, is profoundly moving.
A brilliant film
----------------
