Francis Kurkdjian x Cyril Teste ⋅ Maison Francis Kurkdjian

Francis Kurkdjian x Cyril Teste

Revisiting Richard Strauss's electrifying Salome and Vincenzo Bellini's captivating Norma for the Vienna National Opera (Austria), director Cyril Teste continues his connection with perfume. Some years after directing Festen and Opening Night, plays for which Cyril Teste had called upon Francis Kurkdjian, the story continues. These operas are an opportunity for Francis Kurkdjian to create an olfactory accord embodying the heroine and her famous Dance of the Seven Veils for Salome, and a scented card that recalls the intimate and sacred atmosphere of Norma's Druidic forest.

“Cyril Teste and I share the same vision: we tell stories in our own ways, each in our own language. I like his way of bringing artists together and how he manages this creative ecosystem.”

Francis Kurkdjian

Salome, a princess orphaned of her father and harassed by her stepfather, experiences a violent passion for John the Baptist, a prophet held prisoner. Rejected by the latter, who sees in her not a desirable young woman but a traumatized child, Salome demands of her stepfather Herod that the prophet be beheaded.

Cyril Teste conveys Salome's energy and manages to bring out her emotions and torments while telling the story of a dynasty that is inevitably heading towards its destruction. His staging is accompanied by a unique olfactory accord, diffused within the Opera, created by Francis Kurkdjian to emotionally reinforce the Dance of the Seven Veils. Through this accord, which embodies Salome's duality, between childhood and femininity, innocence and provocation, the veils materialize and the heroine reveals herself in all her intimacy to the public.

Francis Kurkdjian x Cyrils Teste - Maison Francis Kurkdjian

Francis Kurkdjian x Cyril Teste - Maison Francis Kurkdjian

A Gaulish priestess linked to the goddess of peace and fertility, Norma is put to the test as her people grumble with revolt and her lover considers leaving her for a younger woman. In homage to the sacred and mysterious universe of the opera, and particularly to the overwhelming prayer Casta Diva addressed by the heroine to her protective goddess, Francis Kurkdjian has composed a scented card given to spectators whose accord evokes the sacredness of the Druidic forest where the whole story takes place.