# L'écume des jours (opera)

L'écume des jours (English: The Foam of Days) is an opera in three acts (14 scenes) composed by the Russian composer Edison Denisov in 1981. The French (also German and Russian) text is by the composer based on the novel of the same title by Boris Vian.

## Composition history

Denisov conceived of the opera in the 1970s, and he worked on it up until 1981. The libretto is written in French. In it, Denisov used text from the novel and from numerous songs by Boris Vian. He also used religious texts, including a song by an anonymous author (14th tableau), a text from a funeral liturgy (13th tableau), and the Latin text from the mass (Credo and Gloria – 2nd tableau) and from the requiem (Agnus dei and Requiem aeternam – 13th tableau).
Denisov defined his opera as a lyrical drama. The musical language is typical of Denisov's music of the 1980s with complex chromatic vocal lines, dissonant harmony and rich orchestral textures. There are many quotations, hidden quotations or allusions to music of different styles and epochs: songs by Duke Ellington, American jazz, French chanson, or Gregorian chant. All of these are veiled and transformed in some way, and even the quotation from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde has a jazzy hue.
The duration of the work is 2 hours and 20 minutes. It was published by Le Chant du Monde in Paris.

## Performance history

The premiere performance was given on 15 March 1986 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, conducted by John Burdekin and directed by Jean-Claude Fall. Subsequently, productions were mounted at the Perm Opera Theatre in 1989 and the Staatsoper Stuttgart in late 2012.

## Roles

| Roles | Voice type | Premiere cast 15 March 1986 (Conductor: John Burdekin) |
| Colin | tenor | Thierry Dran |
| Chloé | light soprano | Véronique Dietschy |
| Chick | tenor | Marcel Quillevéré |
| Alise | mezzo-soprano | Eva Saurova |
| Isis | soprano | Éliane Lublin |
| Nicolas | bass | Fernand Dumont |
| Mangemanche | bass | Jean-Louis Soumagnas |
| Le sénéchal | tenor | Bruce Brewer |
| Director of the plant | baritone | Michel Philippe |
| Jésus | baritone | Jean-Noël Beguelin |
| The Mouse | speaker | Sarah Mesguich |
| Le Pharmacien | speaker | Jean Rumeau |
| Little Girl | child's voice | Catherine Martin |

## Scoring

* Singers: 2 sopranos, mezzo, 4 tenors, 2 baritones, 3 basses, 2 mimes, 1 boy soprano, chorus
* Orchestra: 3.3.3.3 – alt saxophone, tenor saxophone – 3.3.3.1– percussion – electric guitar, bass guitar – piano/celesta – harp – strings

## Synopsis
### Act 1

1st Tableau: Colin's room
Colin lives together with Mouse, the friend of his house. Colin is waiting for his friend, engineer Chick, whom he invited for dinner. His cook Nicolas is reading the recipes from the cook book. Chick arrives, and Colin shows him the "piano-cocktail", his own invention – the piano that makes cocktails. Chick plays an improvisation on Duke Ellington themes and then tells him about Alise, the niece of Nicolas, whom he met at the conference of Jean-Sol Partre (a broad hint on Jean-Paul Sartre). They both go skating.
Intermezzo: Colin dreams about a girl he wants to meet
2nd Tableau: The skating-rink "Molitor"
Chick and Colin meet Alise and Isis, who invites them to the birthday celebration of her dog. One of the skaters breaks up on the wall. They all join the burial liturgy.
Intermezzo: The windy street
Colin repeats: "I would like to fall in love, you would like to fall in love", and so on.
3rd Tableau: At Isis
Alise tells Colin that Chick does not want to marry her, because he spends all his money on the books by Jean-Sol Partre. Chloé enters. Colin feels that she is the girl of his dream. They dance.
4th Tableau: The Quarter
Colin meets Chloé and they walk along the streets. Terrified by the absurd shop-windows they went to the forest where surrounded by the pink cloud they are invisible for other people.

### Act 2

5th Tableau: Wedding preparations
Two "honorary homosexuals", Pégase and Coriolan, are preparing themselves for the wedding. Simultaneously Chloé, Alise and Isis also prepare themselves for the wedding.
Intermezzo: The wedding of Colin and Chloé: Hymn of Love
6th Tableau: The honeymoon trip
Colin and Chloé travel by car with Nicolas as a driver. Chloé is frightened by the vision of strange fish-scale beasts, smoke and dirt of the copper mines.
7th Tableau: At Colin's
Colin and Chloé are in bed. Chloé complains about pain in her lungs. They play a record, and the room is transformed into a sphere. The visit of a doctor.
Intermezzo: The Medical Quarter, the channel with some fragments of bloody cotton, the eye gazing to Colin and Chloé
8th Tableau: The pharmacy
Colin and Chick are in a strange pharmacy with a guillotine for recipes and a mechanical rabbit making pills. Colin tells that Chloé has a lily in her lungs, and only flowers can cure her.
9th Tableau: At Colin's
Chloé is surrounded by flowers. The room became smaller. Colin reads her a novel about Tristan and Iseult.

### Act 3

Intermezzo: Colin walks along the road; the vision of strange shapes and shadows
10th Tableau: The military plant
Colin finds a job at the military factory. The Director explains that weapons are growing from the seeds if you warm them with your naked body.
11th Tableau: At Colin's
Chloé sleeps among the flowers. Alise enters and tells Colin that Chick spent all his money on the books by Jean-Sol Partre, and now wants to separate from her. Colin tries to console her.
Intermezzo: Seneschal and eight policemen are coming to Chick to confiscate his property
12th Tableau: At Chick's
Chick dies defending his books. Paris is on fire.
Intermezzo: Alise sets fire to the bookshops with the books by Jean-Sol Partre
13th Tableau: Chloé’s death
The dialogue between Colin and Jesus nailed to the cross.
Intermezzo: The empty town. The little girl sings a song about the dead town
14th Tableau: An Epilogue
Dialogue of Cat and Mouse. Mouse wants to die putting its head into the Cat's mouth. Blind girls walk the street singing a song about Jesus. One of the girls stepped on the Cat's tail. The Cat shuts its mouth.

## Recordings

Colin et Chloé, suite from the opera L'écume des jours (The Foam of Days) for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, chorus and orchestra (1981) 36' Text by Boris Vian (French)
* LP Melodiya 24593: USSR Ministry of Culture SO, Latvian SSR Academic Chorus, The USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra, Vasili Sinaisky (conductor), Nelli Lee (soprano), Nina Terentieva (mezzo-soprano), Nikolai Dumtsev (tenor)
* CD Melodiya SUCD 10-00107: USSR Ministry of Culture SO, Latvian SSR Academic Chorus, The USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra, Vasili Sinaisky (conductor), Nelli Lee (soprano), Nina Terentieva (mezzo-soprano), Nikolai Dumtsev (tenor)