Philip Glass: Les Enfants Terribles

Paul:  Attila Dobák
Elisabeth: Szilvia Rálik 
Gérard: Botond Ódor 
Dargelos / Agathe: Zsófia Kálnay 
Narrator: János Szemenyei 
Conductor: Péter Dobszay 
Director: Dóra Barta 

Adaption by Philip Glass and Susan Marshall

Rare is the work for the opera stage in which singers and dancers share equal importance in jointly moving the story along with their expressive power. This is something that is evident in the dance opera Les enfants terribles, which world-renowned Philip Glass composed as the final part of his Jean Cocteau trilogy. In the story of Paul and Lise, the two children are both prisoners and victims of an imaginary world of their own invention, having created through play an entire world which they are no longer able to distinguish from reality. One way to interpret the piece is as Cocteau’s faith in the transcendent power of the imagination and creativity, in which the singers and dancers alternate in relating the events taking place in the story.