Description
Pendant que Jean Cocteau passait ses vacances au Piquey, il lut dans le journal local un fait divers qui le frappa vivement : le fils de pauvres paysans roumains confié en bas âge à des cousins qui partaient chercher fortune en Amérique, n’avait plus eu de rapports avec ses parents ; devenu un brillant étudiant il désira les revoir et partit pour la Roumanie. Arrivé dans son village, il se proposa de passer la nuit chez ses parents sans se faire reconnaître. Ceux-ci l’ayant pris pour un riche étranger l’assassinèrent. Cocteau s’inspira de ce fait divers pour composer un livret d’opéra. Ecrit sans ratures, au courant de la plume, ce texte poétique me plut beaucoup : Cocteau le destinait à Auric, mais ce dernier étant très occupé accepta de ma le céder… The tree acts of this short opera follow each other without a break. The stage is divided into three areas of action: to the left the bar of the ‘poor sailor’s’ wife (the characters are not given names), to the right the wine shop of the friend, and in the middle a narrow passage representing the street. A patch of blue sky and the sea are visible between the houses. Act I open with a java supposedly played on a mechanical piano. The wife, who is with her father and the friend, declares her fidelity to her husband who disappeared some fifteen years ago. She dreams that he will come back rich, so rich they will be able to buy the ‘Café du Commerce’, but if he returns poor she will accept him nonetheless. It is getting late and the friend leaves, borrowing a hammer. There follows a duet in which the father ridicules the wife’s refusal to remarry, but she gently yet firmly stands her ground.