Pousseur - Votre Faust

In 1995 Henri Pousseur wrote in a letter to UE: “As you already know, Votre Faust is not a work that can easily be called conventional opera. When Butor and I drafted the piece in the early 60s, we dreamed of a new form of theatre that would merge the characteristics of (modern) theatre and modern music, while at the same time approaching baroque opera, the form of the operas of Brecht and Weill, the Japanese Noh and the “théâtre de tréteaux”, such as the l'Histoire du soldat – while still being completely different.”

The focus of attention in this “variable” opera is the young composer Henri, who is commissioned by a fiendish theatre director to write a version of “Faust”. The opera is structured in such a way that at the end of Act 1 the audience is able to decide how the story should continue. Should Henri spend his life with warm-hearted Maggy? Or with saucy Greta? This fork branches into an ever more complicated thicket of alternatives. After almost every scene the audience can interrupt and change the course of events. All the alternatives are well structured, but the path itself is unpredictable.

Pousseur: “From a certain point the opera is like a system of railway tracks with lots of points that can be switched by the actors, singers, musicians, at the request of the audience. That is the advantage of ‘mobile' art.”

Pousseur and Butor toy with biographical self-reflection and dig deeply into the treasure trove of quotations from literature and music in all style epochs.
 Recognition even of some of the quotations, imitations, literary and musical references supplies the audience with a wholly specific pleasure and a deeper understanding of the whole experience.

As you already know, Votre Faust is not conventional opera. When Butor and I drafted the piece in the early 60s, we dreamt of a new form of theatre that would merge the characteristics of (modern) theatre and modern music, while at the same time approaching the baroque opera, the form of the operas of Brecht and Weill, the Japanese Noh and the théâtre de tréteaux, such as the l'Histoire du soldat – while still being completely different.

Excerpt from a letter from Henri Pousseur to Universal Edition on 6 November 1995