MEDIATHEK

The opera takes place the night before Gregor’s execution. He doesn’t know why he was arrested. Lying in his cell, exhausted, he falls asleep and in his dreams relives his entire life, distorted as though reflected back to him from a warped mirror: his childhood, his education, his work, the limitations placed on his critical thinking. To add to his confusion, Gregor is accompanied in his dreams by guides stemming from the humanist tradition: Petrarch, Dante, Erasmus, Rabelais, Camus… all worried about the destiny which awaits them and their only living heir. His death would signify their death. Following Felliniesque logic, all these scenes quickly transform into nightmares and Gregor awakes many times in his cell. A little girl, the incarnation of Mathilda in Dante’s Divine Comedy, keeps him company in the hallway of his death through a little door used to give him food. She will give Gregor the confidence he needs to confront his fate. In the final scene, the soldiers come to get Gregor at dawn for his execution by firing squad. The general asks for his final words. Gregor quotes La Rochefoucauld: «He who lives without folly isn’t as wise as he thinks.» The general screams: «Fire!» Le rêve de Grégoire (Gregor’s Dream) has ended, and now the metamorphosis can begin…

Le rêve de Grégoire (Gregor’s Dream) begins with an arrest. In his cell, a man awaits his execution. He has no idea what he might have done to deserve such a fate, but whether he finds out or not, it won’t change his situation. He will die. Or maybe not.

But why? Le rêve de Grégoire is a fable. A fable about our world. A savage fable, maybe even a desperate one. But certainly not a defeatist one.

A fable which asserts: “There is something in me that power and authority, no matter how absurd or out of control, can never destroy.” (René-Daniel Dubois, Stage Director)