IRRELEVANCE

Recently I have been thinking a lot about LA VOIX HUMAINE, the opera by Poulenc and Cocteau…. As always, an extraordinary coincidence occurred in life. Just as I was thinking of this piece, one of my best friend had a surgery and the doctors advised him not to talk for three weeks and added that his speaking voice will be different forever! When he asked for more details, they answered “we do not know.”

What a splendid irony, yes, events are in perspective again!!! Every event has the potential to contain both, truth and lie, dream and nightmare, reality and fantasy, always mixed.

Years go by and we are still trying to try to find a meaning to it all. And sometimes hazard, or the untamable laws of destiny give us some answers, or more precisely some pieces of answers which drives us to think about the missing pieces, the next step, the next adventure, the next risk of taking risks

The voice…human… or the human voice?

Are we using our voices the way we should? I do not think so; we should try to eliminate all the harsh words we have for others, all the pains we inflict with our voices and our voices should only be the carrier of joy, pleasure, achievement… With this I am dreaming again!!!!!                                                    

And what about the thoughts? What will happen to them?

I am wandering…my thoughts dictate the words I am writing…maybe I should use my voice before typing the letters I am writing and obliterate the non-sense which sometimes invades my blank pages.

The voice…when we wake up every morning are our first thoughts for the voice? Do we pronounce a few reassuring words and smile at the sound of our voices?

I have directed this opera four times and really like it… Every time it was a new adventure because the performer was different and we all know or should know that we do not ask different artists to do the same thing.

I was always wondering why it is called “La Voix Humaine”, is there a voice which is not Human?

What other voices are around or were around? The voice of the supreme Guide? The voice of remorse, the voice of the ghosts? But even they are human creation, so La voix Humaine means what?

Here I am trying to find a meaning to LA VOIX HUMAINE, but why?

Too often, difficult moments in life dictate the meaning of our existence, and why is that? I do not know anymore; no actually I have never known.

It seems that every day I am more and more submerged by the feeling of irrelevance surrounding me and sometimes I feel that I am the head of this new way of being, and finding reasons to speak and use my voice.

Yes, I know every generation says the same about the generation before and the generation after, but I REALLY do not believe it was ever so extreme!        

I think that today a 35 year-old person cannot talk to a younger 18 year-old person… So, imagine a baby boomer trying to communicate with an adolescent or even a forty year-old!!!!

                                                                                                                   

 I am strange, I am from another generation, I am not part of the trends of today, I am not credible in the ways people function…. I do not have the same values, the same CREDO, even the same language! I have to be constantly careful of the words I use in order not to be accused to be temperamental, irrational, aggressive, but at the same time we are all supposed to be equal (which should ABSOLUTELY BE TRUE). Yet we cannot find the words to express ourselves out of fear of being politically incorrect.

In every aspect of life, of culture, of human relations, of beliefs, of our sense of belonging, of politics, of EVERYTHING, I have the horrendous sensation of being totally irrelevant. In the world of the arts or what is left of it, I am totally irrelevant because I believe in the respect of masterpieces, in the tradition of beauty, in the search for the truth, in the study of it to try to find new significance or new lights.

It seems that sometimes (and not because of my French accent) people around me do not understand what I say, what I do, what I think, even what I dream. They look at me like I belong to another planet, to another world, to another society, to another time! I am strange, I am from another generation, I am not part of the trends of today, I am not credible in the ways people function.

My profession became a perpetual question mark for me! Most of the productions I attend are a bizarre approach to rediscover the already made, not to say a ridiculous (for me) attempt to do something new, something different, something more in line with the …. I really do not even know what.                                                                                                                   

The meaning of the words is not taken seriously, if they are considered at all. The stylistic influences of the period and the music are intentionally ignored, or in some cases are contradicted to prove an artistic creativity and a sense of modernism.  

                                                                        

I would like to know when the great museums of the world will distribute special glasses at the doors which will deform or change the colors of the paintings and the sculptures. I cannot wait to have glasses that will show me Mona Lisa all in red or pink or purple and wearing duck ears. I will sit in the room of the museum wondering and letting my fertile imagination wander.

The last shows I have attended in New York, I left after the second act, resisting the desire to leave after the first one, hoping to finally breathe with ease. 

The work on the characters, the situations and the period was nonexistent, the attempt to understand and to go deeper in human relations was forbidden, the sense of beauty was laughed at.

They believe they will attract a new audience with it, and the theaters are empty! They simply forget that human nature has not really evolved significantly and real feelings, real stories do not change from generation to generation. Since the beginning of times the human heart has been touched by REAL FEELINGS AND REAL THOUGHTS…

These so-called monuments of the past continue to move audiences because they speak to our souls, to our hearts, to our beings…                                                                   

And do not answer me by saying WHAT IS REALITY? I am sure you know.                                                                                                                                          

YES you can write new pieces, new art, new anything you want the way you want and try to discover new approaches. Actually it is even our duty as artists, if we do not, we cannot advance and progress to the next step. But please leave the masterpieces alone.

                                                                                                                                 

Did Picasso create his last masterpieces by taking his paintings from the blue and the rose periods (the figurative period) and painting on top of it to create the Demoiselles D’Avignon? No, He did not, he developed a new form of expressing himself.

The chorus in Ballo is dressed like Ladybugs, Romeo is in love with Stefano, Juliette is blind, Turandot is a butcher, Figaro is a German soldier, Manon is a whore in the low district in Paris may be Pigalle, the set of Boheme is in the Chinese district of Tokyo, nobody knows what the words mean…

Of course, sometimes we have to adapt a new sensitivity and new understandings, but not to the detriment of the basics which are life and human soul.

La voix humaine is betrayed, and in place we have La voix ridiculed and the humaine denied.

Unfortunately, this attitude of irrelevance is not only wounding or murdering the arts but also every aspect of everyday life.

My freedom you helped me to leave my chains, I suffered to satisfy your demands, I gave you everything, I left my world and I lost my friends, but I owe you everything I have.                           

But I became irrelevant in my aspirations, in my dreams, and in my attempts to change the world which was always my priority. I wanted to change the world by bringing new truth and new beliefs, but ALWAYS BASED on knowledge, on understanding, on research…. And I have the feeling that I am completely irrelevant, dismissible and out of touch with the “geniuses “of today.