Today, the Opéra de Lausanne presents the world première of Les zoocrates, an 'animal and operatic silliness' by Thierry Besançon, with a libretto in French by Örs Kisfaludy.
It is the composer's first opera.
But...what on earth is a zoocrate? Is it some kind of learned animal, a zoological Socrates of sorts whose name is spoken with a lisp or even a stutter? A...Socratic animal? Why not! Doesn't the writer Eugène Ionesco declare so in his play Rhinoceros? : « All cats are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore Socrates is a cat. » This is pure logic, isn't it? Indeed, but it would be even more (zoo) logical to think that a zoocrate is but the animal equivalent of a democrat. And zoocracy, the equivalent of democracy. (reproduced from the Opéra de Lausanne website)the cast includes actor Thierry Takahahshi-Jorand (Le chasseur), bass Daniel Golossov (Le Lion), counter-tenor Jérôme Vavasseur (La Hyène), bass Alexandre Diakoff (L'homme-singe / Le marabout), soprano Yuki Tsurusaki (La gazelle) and tenor Fernando Cuellar Leon (Le zèbre). Andrei Feher conducts the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. Pierre Lepori and François Renou direct.
The performance should last about 70 minutes, with no intermission.
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