The Creation

According to a poll reported in the press, 38% of Americans today still believe that the Earth in its current form was created less than 10,000 years ago. Such a figure testifies to the ferocity of creationism: the representation of the world we take for granted, based on the observation of scientific facts, is under attack from obscurantists on all sides.

Set to a libretto inspired by the Book of Genesis, Haydn's Creation gave the German oratorio its letters of nobility. On his return from London, where Handel's works had made a strong impression on him, the brilliant composer felt the urge to transcend the classicism of which he - along with Mozart and Beethoven - was the most illustrious exponent. Relating nothing less than the birth of the world from chaos to light, the work displays a rare harmonic audacity.

Then the sacred rays dispelled
the darkness of sinister night.The Creation

The last thirty years have seen the emergence of a trend in opera: the staging of non-staged works, with great successes ranging from Schoenberg's Transfigured Night by Klaus Michael Grüber and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker to Romeo Castellucci's recent production of Mozart's Requiem. Oratorios are works imbued with an inner theatricality, whose staging opens up new areas of exploration for our sensibilities.

Kevin Barz is no doubt a familiar name to audiences in Nancy: a few seasons ago, this young German director was responsible for successfully delivering the first part of the Nancy Opera Xperience. He transformed the city into a giant opera house, staging operatic scenes in bus shelters, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, a bowling alley and a launderette. He is back with this no less original project. Taking up Haydn's oratorio in defiance of the creationists, he rereads Genesis in the light of our current knowledge of the history of the universe since the Big Bang: with light as the common thread, he draws up a thought-provoking reflection, at a time when the combat against fake news is becoming a daily sport.