Frühlings Erwachen @ La Monnaie

To be sure, L’Éveil du printemps has little about it that is innocent. With a profound sense of poetry, the author describes the passage from childhood to adulthood, a time when universal and eternal questions of the meaning of life are exacerbated, and when the first sexual desires and the difficulty of adolescents to enter into the world of adults – and vice versa – all manifest themselves. Benoît Mernier was inspired by Wedekind’s play to write this, his first opera, and seduced by its underlying idea - that each of us, young or old, is confronted by contradictory passions and emotions – finding a way to live with them is up to us.