Rimbaud en Afrique

Composer: Nicholas Lens
Libretto: Rachel M. Cholz, Nicholas Lens (in French, English, Amharic)

150 mins
Cast: 10 singers
Orchestration: symphony or chamber orchestra

The libretto of Rimbaud en Afrique (working title) is co-written by Rachel M. Cholz, the French poet and author of the novel Pipeline (Editions Seuil).

“Why does a genius artist at the age of twenty, voluntarily stop being an artist? 

The myth of Arthur Rimbaud (the adventurous poet, the eternal youth and beauty, the wanderer, the free soul and spirit), is too strong to destroy. And even if we would like to destroy the myth (his contemporaries: out of jealousy on his talent, out of fear to disharmonize their way of living), we can not, as it is too developed. We all feed that myth ourselves with our quest for eternal youth, projecting this fantasy on the protagonist.

We sympathize with people close to him (Verlaine), who enjoy but also suffer from his presence. At the same time we all are as well victim from Rimbaud's bewitching charisma.

In Rimbaud en Afrique, Rimbaud (in the face of the morality of various domains) is stripped of himself, yet his youth is captured in an image; an image of his angelic gaze is nonetheless juxtaposed with his turbulent, dilapidated, and sometimes violent life.”