“Whomever loves the fantastical and the surreal, poetry and fantasy, cannot be unmoved by the work of Jean Cocteau.”

Francis Kurkdjian  

In March 2024, La Cité de la Musique unveiled the Cocteau / Philip Glass Trilogy. This creation, in which music, light and fragrance converse, brings together Katia and Marielle Labèque, Cyril Teste and Nina Chalot – all friends of the Maison.

Katia and Marielle Labèque interpret two-piano suites from three Philip Glass operas inspired by the works of Jean Cocteau:Orpheus, Beauty and the Beast, and Les Enfants Terribles. A scenography by Cyril Teste and Nina Chalot, whose centrepiece is a sleek and enigmatic digital chandelier, delicately enhances their performance.

Drawing inspiration from the theme of duality –omnipresent in the Cocteau Trilogy – Francis Kurkdjian composes three fragrance accords that are diffused over the course of the concert. For Orpheus, he dreams up notes of cold incense smoke, creating the impression of a pale and mineral mist that echoes the austere, enveloping spirit of the protagonist’s house. For Beauty and the Beast, he conjures the olfactory image of a fresh, sensual rose with a nevertheless troubling, dangerous facet hidden in its thorns. The trilogy’s final act, Les Enfants Terribles, is profoundly marked by a duality in which the innocence of childhood sharply contrasts with the hostility of adulthood. By turns, the fragrance accord evokes the warmth of a baked treat combined with the warm, muted interior of Paul and Elisabeth’s room, and the coolness of a snowy outside world from which the children are trying to escape.

© Denis Allard

© JPH – Clandoeil