George Benjamin, Martin Crimp

It begins with a terrible event, that of the death of the child. If, before nightfall, its nameless mother manages to convince a human being, who can say that he or she is happy, to give her, as proof, a button from their sleeve, a miracle will happen, and the child will come back to life. The inspiration for this piece comes from the well-known tale, The Happy Man's Shirt, but also the Alexander Romance, from the ancient Greek tradition, and the Buddhist story of Kisā Gotamī. The opera is a journey, in the manner of Alice in Wonderland, according to Martin Crimp, and moves forwards in sequences, in which each scene has its own musical laws within an interrupted form of continuity. Along her route, the mother meets a loving couple, a rather disturbing craftsman who, before retiring, made buttons, a female composer accompanied by her assistant, and a collector who is moved by the woman's grief. Each encounter, however, brings nothing but disillusionment. At the end of this quest, in a magnificent, calm garden, at the fringes of the material and the immaterial, as can so often be the case in George Benjamin's concise yet enchanting music, the mother meets Zabelle. The latter resembles her, and invites her to perceive things in a different way.

Interview with George Benjamin, Heiner Goebbels & Jérôme Combier