L’écume des Jours

Boris Vian, the jazzman, chansonnier and author, published in 1946 the novel L’Écume des jours, a surrealistically alienated, elegiac-tragic love story. After Vian’s early death, the book rose in the 1960s / 70s to the cult book of a generation of young readers. So it fell on the other side of the Iron Curtain and the composer Edison Denisov in the hands. Denisov has reflected in his work the achievements of the Western avant-garde in a very personal way. His opera version of the novel, first performed in 1986, interweaves melodically inspired scenes full of chamber music intensity with musical-like choir and chanson interludes and quotes jazz legend Duke Ellington.