‘When I wrote a Japanese opera, the Three Tales of the Honourable Flower,

some Japanese composers were able to say, “That is what we wanted to write!”,
but beyond this imagined Japan, I was expressing only myself unreservedly.’
‘One fine day, I happened upon a volume of Japanese legends that a student had
given me, very old legends of oral tradition written down in the 16th century. It
was the same student who informed me that my name meant “Honourable
Flower” in Japanese.’
‘I invented these tales but still told a Japanese musician they were from the 8th
century; he replied: “Oh no, no, they are typically 7th century”.’
‘I immediately oriented myself towards a sort of imagery in the style of Douanier
Rousseau, in which the mysterious, the malefic and the magical are combined !’

LA CÉLESTINE (no. 90) Playing time: 2 hr 30’

Lyric tragi-comedy in 11 tableaux after Fernando de Rojas (1492), adaptation and
libretto by Maurice Ohana, French text by Odile Marcel.
1st tableau: Prologue. Première prophétie de la Sibylle
2nd tableau: Le Camp des Rois Catholiques à Santa-Fe
3rd tableau: Le Jardin des Délices
4th tableau: Les Sorts (chez Calyx); portrait de Célestine; Pandemonium
(mimodrame)
5th tableau: L’Antre des Sorts (chez Célestine); Interlude; deuxième prophétie de
la Sibylle
6th tableau: Le Jardin de Mélibée
7th tableau: Grande conjuration des Sorts
8th tableau: Nuit au Jardin des Délices
9th tableau: Les cris de rue; chez Célestine – la Cène; mort de Célestine; éloge de
Célestine; Ruffian; troisième prophétie de la Sibylle
10th tableau: Deuxième nuit au Jardin des Délices; Alborada – mort de Calyx;
delirium and mort de Mélibée; déploration du père
11th tableau: Epilogue; Triomphe de Christophe Colomb à Séville; rituel de
l’oubli
" Forces: singing roles: The Sibyl (2 voices: coloratura soprano and mezzo),
Mélibée (soprano); Lucrèce, Mélibée’s attendant (dramatic soprano);
Célestine (contralto); Aréis and Elys, Célestine’s lodgers (2 sopranos); Calyx
(baritone); Tristan, Calyx’s page (tenorino); Sosie, Calyx’s page (tenor);
Criton and Ruffian, the lodgers’ lovers (respectively actor-singer and basso
buffo); Mélibée’s father (bass-baritone); the Fates (12-18 women’s voices
selected from the mixed chorus of 40-80 voices); spoken role: the Visionary
(actor-singer portraying Fernando de Rojas, the work’s author).
Orchestra: 2 flutes + piccolo, 2 oboes + English horn, 2 clarinets + bass clarinet,
2 bassoons + contrabassoon, 2.2.2 + bass trombone, percussion (3 performers),
solo harpsichord, piano, chancel organ, strings 12.10.8.6.4 (maximum), tape
Percussion instruments:
I (on stage): vibraphone, tubular bells, 2 suspended cymbals, 2 crotales (struck
together), bell tree, 4 tom-toms (B, D, F, B flat), 1 tambourine, 4 temple blocks,
maracas, 1 guiro, 2 stones (struck together).

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