...The same programme includes another musical theatre show based on Danaé by François-Bernard Mâche. The title was suggested to me," explains the composer, "when the work was almost finished, by the rain effect produced by the crackling of the damarus, or small drums with whipping balls that the singers manipulate. It must be that the power of myth comes through secret channels, because in the dozens of poems written collectively by schoolchildren who had been made to listen to the work, without being told either the title or the author, and in the absence of any sung text, the images of bronze and golden rain, of the winged horse and the sea, appeared with more insistence than one would expect from chance".

                                        La vie de Bordeaux, 11 May 1979

Musical May. Critics under the spell of Danaé

Noises and whispers, music of the inexpressible, the path of the mineral and the human in an instant reconciled, then abolished, then rediscovered, as on the shores of the sea, a face of sand.
Music of the earth and the wind, music without cries but not without words, music of the voice and the breath, music of bronze and gold, of light and shadow, music of silence... this is Danaé, or rather Les Mangeurs d'ombre, the most beautiful, the most engaging, the rarest of all the performances in the Mai musical.
This piece, given its world premiere at the entrepôt Lainé, in a subtle staging by Pierre Barrat, supported by the percussion distilled by Jean-Pierre Drouet, moves and upsets. The young critics gathered in Bordeaux by the International Critics Association were speechless. Better still, as armchair critics have long since given way to a reflection on the relationship between the audience and the theatre, the Italian and Mexican heads of the A.I.C.I. bought the show for their respective countries...

Florence Mothe, Sud-Ouest, La France, la nouvelle République, 19 May 1979

Simple tenderness

A few months ago, the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux embarked on the adventure of contemporary opera with the caution of a cautious bather who first dips the tip of his foot in the sea before venturing further... And now the Grand Théâtre, eager to go further, has just co-produced with the Atelier Lyrique du Rhin and the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, a contemporary musical theatre show which, while it uses scores composed ten or twelve years ago, does a masterly job of making you forget.
Presented two evenings in a row, the show brought together François-Bernard Mâche's Mangeurs d'ombre and Maurice Ohana's Syllabaire pour Phèdre.
When he composed it in 1970, François-Bernard Mâche's score (1935) for choir and natural percussion - pebbles, bronze plates, spoons, whistles - entrusted to the singers contained no narrative or dramatic elements; the title, Danaé, had been suggested to him by the rain effect produced by the crackling of the damarus, small drums with whipping balls that the performers manipulate at a given moment. Collective poems written by schoolchildren who were given the work to listen to inspired the two-part show: Rituel, for which François-Bernard Mâche composed an essentially rhythmic score, blending the cry with the sound of cadenced steps, dance and the shattering of metal plates being struck, and Danaé, which dramatises the original score...
The same set elements, stone foundations and a circular floor, designed by Isabel Echarri and Diego Etcheverry, are used for both works: they are so well integrated into the site - an old stone warehouse - that they seem to have been there for all eternity; the costumes too seem eternal: the women all in black as in Greece or Sicily, the men in medieval tunics. The ritual, magical aspect, the gestures of tragedy, or those we assume to be such, do not stifle the human aspects here, the simple tenderness, all that ambiguity between the two aspects that the music excels at translating... in both Les Mangeurs d'ombre and Le Syllabaire, Pierre Barrat has managed to avoid any direct illustration in his direction of the actors: The gestures speak, suggest more than they tell, and leave the door open to the imagination... We will therefore continue to wonder why the Atelier Lyrique du Rhin has to go and be applauded so far from home when the doors of the Strasbourg Opera remain stubbornly closed to it.

                                               Gérard Condé, Le Monde 24 May 1979

...the interest aroused by the work of François-Bernard Mâche...testifies to what is radically changing in the cultural life of Bordeaux, gently reformed by Gérard Boireau.

                             Florence Mothe, Sud-Ouest 28 May 1979

Dominant symbolism

Music from beyond the grave, music of the inexpressible, music of the wind, of silence, of the voice, percussion music that gives the piece a ghostly character, dominant symbolism, apparent unreality, fascinating reveries, here in a few words is the summary of François-Bernard Mâche's creation: Les Mangeurs d'ombre.
The show was eagerly awaited and seems to have lived up to its promises, accompanied, it's true, by a setting - the entrepôts Laîné - that is highly conducive to this kind of event. The proof of this good performance is that this play has been commissioned by numerous countries hoping for a success worthy of this masterpiece. All in all, a deeply moving creation.

                Philippe Fourès, Courrier français, Bordeaux 26 May 1979

Les Mangeurs d'ombre (Shadow eaters)

World premiere: Les Mangeurs d'ombre, taken from Danaé by François-Bernard Mâche, who had it preceded by Rituel for the stage version, portrays the drama of Danaé.
From the outset, the dramatic atmosphere is set by the arrival of the men in the shadows, whose hooves set a relentless rhythm that is soon reinforced by the percussion of the bronze plates they carry.
The rhythms, the songs, Danae's journey to the tower where she is imprisoned, Danae's possession by the sun, accompanied by the union of the couples, the birth of Danae's son, their departure from the tower, the throwing of the disc that kills the grandfather - all these scenes are mimed with great sobriety and grandeur, to the percussion and songs of a musical composition of great nobility.
The music is imbued with finesse and sensitivity, such as the women's chorus, born of an almost inaudible sound (obtained by the singers by rubbing bronze strips), a song that seems to come from heaven, strange, mysterious, immaterial, bewitching, but also music of vigour and expressive rhythms, the musical composition forming the framework of the drama.
Pierre Barrat's staging is technically ingenious and remarkably true to life, showcasing a homogeneous cast of very high quality, both on stage and vocally and musically, all part of the rhythmic and sonic element....Yves Prin directs the ensemble with sensitive and intelligent precision, giving the fullness it deserves to this very fine work by François-Bernard Mâche, which is both impressive and moving. A memorable moment.

              H.J. Les Nouvelles de Bordeaux et du Sud-Ouest 14 June 1979

At the Entrepôt Lainé...the world premiere of the stage version of Mangeurs d'ombre by François-Bernard Mâche...Pierre Barrat has agreed to create a show based on Danaé by François-Bernard Mâche. The theme is given at the start of the action by an invisible voice, and the production is spectacular. It's an evening of constant interest; curiosity is maintained by a logical and rigorous sequence.

                              Journal de la Haute fidélité, Paris, July 1979

A Greek from Auvergne, a Greek from Andalusia: two of the great myths of eternal Hellas reinterpreted by two of today's masters of French music, separated by a generation and by intellectual and technological horizons, but united by a common Mediterranean humanism. It was Pierre Barrat's ingenious intuition that brought them together, in a show that, like the scores it exalts, translates powerful and simple emotions with a natural and direct force capable of touching the widest possible audiences. Music and performance that are eminently 'ecological', far from the claustration of computers and frozen technocrats, far from the bloodless sophistication of a frozen culture.
This co-production of the Mai de Bordeaux, the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, the Capitole de Toulouse and the Atelier Lyrique du Rhin is an exemplary illustration of the ideology that guides Pierre Barrat's work: teamwork carried out in prolonged symbiosis with amateurs or semi-professionals supervised by a few professional musicians or actors: and the result is something of a miracle. Mâche and Ohana are among those composers who believe - like Barrat, and like the author of these lines - that the priority task of tomorrow's composers will be to invent music that is both radically new and fresh, and accessible to the greatest number of people, not just a few dozen specialists with fifteen years of conservatoire behind them.
Danaé, for twelve voices and a percussionist (Jean-Pierre Drouet, excellent as always) is one of François-Bernard Mâche's most perfect successes. At Pierre Barrat's request, he has added to this twenty-minute score, written some eight years ago, an introductory Ritual lasting a quarter of an hour, devoted almost entirely to the rhythm of simple percussion instruments, pebbles and clapping hands, entrusted to the actor-singers. The staging, both simple and skilful, recreates the atmosphere of a southern village, with its women nobly dressed in black, the comings and goings of its merchants and its young people. And the old legend takes shape quite naturally from this popular substratum, with no break in continuity between its protagonists and their descendants. A great bath of nature and solar euphoria, with the unforgettable, dazzlingly beautiful climax of the Woman impregnated by the sun's rays: one of the purest and most intense orgasms I have ever seen on stage.
...Syllabaire pour Phèdre represents the shadow side of the evening...it is a more difficult work, more demanding than Les mangeurs d'ombre...but the masterly balance of [Pierre Barrat's] conception is confirmed: to the dazzling summit of light of Danaé taken by the Sun here corresponds a summit of shadow.

           Harry Halbreich, Lyrica No. 56, July-August-September 1979

François-Bernard Mâche's Les Mangeurs d'ombre and Maurice Ohana's Syllabaire pour Phèdre, two works that were to be enthusiastically received at the Bordeaux festival.

            Igor, Les Dernières nouvelles d'Alsace, 28 October 1979

Ancient myths and new opera

On 22, 23 and 24 March, at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre, the second opera show in the biennial 'Voix, théâtre et musique d'aujourd'hui' series will feature Les Mangeurs d'ombre by François-Bernard Mâche and Syllabaire pour Phèdre by Maurice Ohana....
Les mangeurs d'ombre was conceived by François-Bernard Mâche based on his work Danaé, written in 1970, and commissioned by Pierre Barrat. I was delighted to accept," says the composer, "even though at the outset there was no narrative or dramatic element to the work. The title had been suggested to me, when it had barely been completed, by the rain effect produced by the crackling of the damarus, or small drums with whipping balls that the singers manipulate". Mâche used this music to "tell the ageless story that no prudence, no strength, no cunning can do anything against the spiritual sun".
                                 G.M. Quotidien de Paris 17 March 1980

With François-Bernard Mâche's Mangeurs d'ombre and Maurice Ohana's Syllabaire pour Phèdre, the double bill just presented by the Atelier lyrique du Rhin this weekend at the Nanterre Biennale is an exemplary success in more ways than one.
It was all a question of choice: two very fine scores, a rare economy of means, the beauty of the materials chosen and the quality of the performers. Two works that are very different from each other, but both refer to Greek antiquity (François-Bernard Mâche's Mangeurs d'ombre and Maurice Ohana's Syllabaire pour Phèdre), brought together in a single show of perfect cohesion, with a beautiful, unique but mobile stage set-up. A village relives two of its great myths (Danaé and Phèdre), each with its own colour and drama.
Les mangeurs d'ombre (The Shadow Eaters) is a strikingly pared-down work, very beautiful to watch unfold in space, renewing the active relationship between the instrumental timbres (from wooden clogs to small drums and percussion, mostly skins) and the voices, which are treated without any recourse to a sung text.

                  Brigitte Massin, Le Matin de Paris 24 March 1980

Pierre Barrat's troupe is currently presenting a show at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre that was first performed at the Mai de Bordeaux 1979 and has never been performed before in Alsace: Les mangeurs d'ombre, by François-Bernard Mâche, and Syllabaire pour Phèdre, by Maurice Ohana...
Les mangeurs d'ombre, reworked by François-Bernard Mâche from a score originally written for a concert, is an enchantingly original and unusual show, combining dramatic acting, the white rhythm of percussion and the haunting modulation of voices around an ancient theme.

               Chr. V., Les Dernières nouvelles d'Alsace 25 March 1980

Mâche and Ohana at Nanterre. An impressive performance by Pierre Barrat

The second biennial 'Voix, théâtre et musiques d'aujourd'hui' festival in Nanterre drew to a close on Tuesday and Wednesday. Despite the success of this festival, which attracted around ten thousand people (twice as many as two years ago), its future is not assured, as it does not seem that the state is taking much interest in a bold and original event that is preparing the future of musical theatre or opera, not in a small circle of initiates, but in contact with the general public.
...the last show was a fine example of this, with François-Bernard Mâche's Mangeurs d'ombre and Maurice Ohana's Syllabaire pour Phèdre, performed back-to-back like two parts of a story, a reinvented musical archaeology.
The first could be an image of the birth of music and myth; no music other than percussion, as simple as possible, clashing pebbles, clapping hands, trampling hooves, metal plates, etc., in elementary rhythms that respond to each other. The most refined percussion instruments, Jean-Pierre Drouet's most delicate rhythms and the actors' voices in whispers, murmurs, interjections, onomatopoeia and the rustling of insects, bees and distant birds. This very harsh and direct score by Mâche, whose attention to the raw music of nature is well known, owes nothing to crude primitivism; originally written for Marcel Couraud's soloists, it turns out to be as suddenly [subtly?] composed as it is rich in suggestion.
It is this piece and its first title, Danaé, that have given rise to the beautiful vision represented by Pierre Barrat: in the midst of this crowd dressed in black, these "shadow eaters", a young girl in a white dress is locked in a tower where she will capture the favours of the Sun; from which will be born a son of the star, in multi-faceted images, raw and delicate, rough and naive, which open the doors to imagery...
With his colleagues at the Atelier lyrique du Rhin, Pierre Barrat has found a style of acting, a mode of theatrical embodiment that combines the vivacity of the people and the stylisation of the cothurne, the simplicity of the discourse and the power of the images, in works in which the theatre is one with the music, embodied only in it. Such an impressive achievement testifies to the fruitfulness of research that deserves to be developed further.
However, we are concerned to learn that the Atelier lyrique will not be able to stage any shows next year for budgetary reasons and that its existence is threatened, its status remaining "between two chairs": a regional location (within the Opéra du Rhin) ill-suited to its work, a national vocation that the Ministry of Culture and Communication does not care to recognise. The Biennale de Nanterre is no more certain of its future: its budget of 1 million francs this year, which is rather modest for seventeen musical and theatrical events, accompanied by several weeks of entertainment, has been too poorly subsidised (less than 50%), despite a major effort by Radio-France (200,000 francs), for the risk to be reasonably taken again, unless more serious consideration is given to it by the music department.
One day we will have to open up the issue of cultural action when we see that even an organisation as important and vibrant as the Maison de la Culture de Nanterre has never had the means to function normally, and is currently threatened by the accumulation of deficits due to the regular reduction, in constant francs, of State funding. It is not certain that the economic crisis is the main cause.

                                  Jacques Lonchampt, Le Monde 25 March 1980

A great success for the Atelier lyrique du Rhin at the 2nd Biennale de Nanterre
A double ritual: this is the form that the Atelier lyrique du Rhin gave to the show it has just presented at the 2nd Biennale "Voix, théâtres et Musiques d'aujourd'hui" in Nanterre (in which Pierre Barrat's Colmar-based ensemble played an essential part for the second time). Premiered in 1979 at the Mai de Bordeaux, this show is one of the Atelier Lyrique's greatest successes, and the warm welcome it received from the audience who flocked to the Maison de la Culture in Nanterre was ample proof of that.
A double ritual, then, with two short works, Les Mangeurs d'ombre (which evokes the myth of Danae, impregnated by Jupiter in the form of a shower of gold) and Syllabaire pour Phèdre, the first by François-Bernard Mâche and the second by Maurice Ohana, two contemporary French composers.
This double reference to the myths that have so strongly marked Western civilisation (Phaedra in particular) is not the only one to call for a show in the form of a ritual ceremony. The music is just as natural.

Close to Greek tragedy
François-Bernard Mâche's music uses a number of surprisingly simple percussion instruments (copper plates, clogs, pebbles, etc.) wielded by the singers, as well as the voice, which is treated as an instrument rather than a mouthpiece. This combination creates a fascinating atmosphere in which the singers move about (in a stage set-up that is as simple as it is evocative, designed by Isabel Echarri and Diego Etcheverry) like servants in a sacred ceremony. The music is simple and powerful, as is Pierre Barrat's direction. The entire company is committed to delivering a highly expressive performance in a work that is more than once reminiscent of Greek tragedy.
			
                    Igor, Les Dernières nouvelles d'Alsace, 28 March 1980

This is the show created at the Entrepôt Lainé, during the last Mai musical, and composed of two contemporary operas, les Mangeurs d'ombre and Syllabaire pour Phèdre, which has just been presented at the Théâtre des Amandiers, in Nanterre....
Noises and whispers, music of the inexpressible, mineral and human paths reconciled then abolished, music of the earth and the wind, music of the voice and the breath - this is Danaé, the work of François-Bernard Mâche.
                Jean-Pierre Drouet uses percussion to recreate the very special atmosphere of this piece in which the composer, in the absence of any sung text, wants to evoke images of bronze and golden rain, of the winged horse and the sea, of a people and its rites, where the spiritual sun gradually disappears and the shadow-eaters feed on the mythical night to bring their dreams back into the light of day.

         Florence Mothe, La Nouvelle République, Bordeaux 29 March 1980

Toulouse, Two creations on 24 April
...evocation of the myth of Danaé (music by François-Bernard Mache) and Syllabaire for Phèdre... According to the director, Pierre Barrat, what is important here is not the text - there is none in Les Mangeurs d'ombre, apart from a sort of onomatopoeia, and very little in the second work - but the expression that emerges from the characters set to appropriate music.
Neither work was written with the stage in mind; the first in the oratorio genre, the second in the concerto genre.

   Sud-Ouest, La France, La Nouvelle République, Bordeaux, 17 April 1980

Théâtre du Capitole, two contemporary operas
The Théâtre du Capitole will be presenting two contemporary operas at the Halle aux Grains on 24 April, in response to its commitment to the development of operatic creation. These are Les Mangeurs d'ombre and Le Syllabaire pour Phèdre, with music by François-Bernard Mâche and Maurice Ohana respectively...
These two shows are a co-production of the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, the Capitole de Toulouse and the Atelier Lyrique du Rhin. The director of this research and creation centre, Pierre Barrat, is responsible for the staging: "These works deal with two tragic myths, those of Danae and Phaedra. The composers use a Mediterranean musical culture and a language composed of onomatopoeia, a sort of archaic vocabulary, which the theatrical performance attempts to illuminate.
Yves Prin will be musical director, while Isabel Icharri and Diego Etcheverry have created the stage set and costumes, inspired by Mallorcan fashion.

                                 Sud-Ouest, Bordeaux23 and 24 April 1980

...les Mangeurs d'ombre and Syllabaire pour Phèdre brought together two works by François-Bernard Mâche and Maurice Ohana, a marvellous show in which the music never loses its rights, a comforting model of musical theatre. All these productions are the work of the Atelier Lyrique du Rhin team led by Pierre Barrat (with Yves Prin as conductor), providing a dazzling demonstration of the value of long-term teamwork.

                               Panorama of music and instruments, May 1980

Time has not erased the collective memory of humanity: the faces of Phaedra the ancient and Danae the mythical. Tragedy, for them, takes on different colours, and if, for the former, death is the end, for the latter it is the motor of rebirth.
The scores composed by Maurice Ohana for Phèdre and François-Bernard Mâche for Danaé attempt both to shed light on psychological states and to build up the corresponding ambient climates. Both composers use certain constants of vocal expression (murmurs, cries, breaths, atonal polyphony in diaphanous and dissonant veils), with varying degrees of percussion accompaniment. There are obvious similarities between the form of each of these works, but it is only the spirit and the fundamental treatment that give them their originality and uniqueness...

Les mangeurs d'hommes [sic] (Man-eaters)
This is unquestionably a fascinating ritual of love, death and life. The characters are simultaneously real beings and fictitious entities, mysteriously but effectively combining this dual belonging to appearance and essential truth.
Voices become elements of percussion, and the percussion is as much in the typical material as in the stomping, chanted steps and rhythmic marches. The repetitive, obsessive nature of the 'sound effects' in their various levels and unusual hues defines a dimension that has lost all boundaries and takes on the appearance and density of fabulous inner landscapes, at once carnal and totally spiritualised.
The magic of the sounds evolves from the most vaporous movements to the most vertiginous, shattering apocalypse. And, in this unprecedented range of auditory sensations, the superb Danae (Marie Boitel) transcends her despair into a call to the Light.
François-Bernard Mâche possesses a keen sense of original purity, and he elevates it to the unspeakable summit of the sign that sublimates the word, of the gesture that transmutes perception. And it is through this vocal choreography and instrumental ceremonial dynamics that the prodigious incantatory evocation of what lies beyond life and beyond death blossoms. An unforgettable moment of self-transcendence and self-forgetfulness.
The musicians and singers, under the supple, attentive direction of Yves Prin, achieve a real feat, in a production by Pierre Barrat that is totally in tune with the visionary concerns of the composers, and more particularly those of François-Bernard Mâche. There are surprising affinities here, and they are exceptionally well realised.
Isabel Echarri and Diego Etcheverry's stage set-up is sufficiently stylised to be masterfully evocative. The circle inscribed in a square speaks its own language and goes further than its apparent geometry...

                          Claude De Breuilh, La Croix de Toulouse, 5 May 1980

When it comes to musical theatre, disappointments have been so frequent that the successes have to be said loud and clear. Such is the case with the show just presented by the Atelier Lyrique du Rhin at the Biennale de Nanterre, following its premiere in Bordeaux last spring. The success is all the more astonishing in that it consists of two very different works brought together in a single show, with no discontinuities, a difficult challenge to meet. François-Bernard Mâche's Les Mangeurs d'ombre and Maurice Ohana's Syllabaire pour Phèdre have in common their reference to Antiquity, Danae and Phèdre; the two scores, albeit in different ways, express the search for a new mode of sung expression, with or without recourse to speech, the sounds emitted by the voices being perceived as timbres, on a par with the other timbres used (large percussion instruments for Mâche, instrumental ensemble for Ohana). Both works are staged like a ritual, with great simplicity of means, on a round stage - the Agora - where a light wooden structure is built and dismantled. It's a sight to behold; the show is extremely rigorous in its conception and, above all, extremely precise in its musical execution. The entire team of singers and musicians from the Atelier Lyrique du Rhin, under the direction of Pierre Barrat and Yves Prin, have produced an exemplary work of powerful interest, which is a model of its kind and which, easily transportable or exportable, should find a home in a great many venues.
                                   Brigitte Massin, Opéra international May 1980

Barrat had the excellent idea of marrying two works by having François-Bernard Mâche's Mangeurs d'ombre precede Syllabaire, a ritual of savage purity (40 minutes). Two concentric circles inscribed in a square: we are somewhere between Stonehenge and Mycenae to witness the celebration of a mystery around a sacrificial stone. Naked, the dialectic of violence and the sacred, without a word, only the music of murmuring, speaking mouths, cut by Jean-Pierre Drouet's telluric percussion.

                             Jacques Doucelin, Le Figaro, L'Aurore, 21 May 1980