LES BOULINGRIN at Theater an der Wien

Monsieur Des Rillettes, a professional scrounger, has received an invitation to tea from the apparently solidly middle-class couple, Monsieur and Madame Boulingrin. He is already happily contemplating the prospect of being able to warm himself during the winter months by taking tea and biscuits – and maybe more – at least three times a week at the pleasant Boulingrins’. But his warm refuge quickly becomes too hot for him to handle: the Boulingrins immediately make their guest a party to the hell that is their marriage: they have become bored with quarrelling alone. Des Rillettes finds himself hopelessly trapped as a witness and whipping boy of bourgeois madness. The couple are alive to any escape attempt, which they quickly foil. In the end, bullets fly, the apartment is on fire and when at long last a glass of champagne is offered, Des Rillettes is unable to feel any pleasure…
Georges Courteline wrote this little mixture of comedy and hell in the grotesque style of the Grand Guignol. The composer Georges Aperghis was commissioned by the Opéra Comique Paris to write an opera based on this text that was premiered there in May 2010 with the Klangforum Wien. Georges Aperghis, originally from Athens, has been living and working in Paris since 1963. He develops his compositions with his troupe, the Atelier Théâtre et Musique (ATEM), and has been exploring new forms of musical theatre for decades.