Opéra sérieux by Régine Detambel (review)

après un premier mariage dont elle avait déjà décrit l’échec (Les mouflettes d’Atropos, 2000). Mais ce ménage est ici un ménage à trois. Entre Chloé et son compagnon Igor (individu trouble qui se prend pour le maître américain de la science-fiction, Philip K. Dick), vient s’immiscer une intruse, nommée la “Clef”. Malgré sa désignation , cette “clef” demeure absconse. Elle n’ouvre aucune porte et ne semble qu’une anagramme imparfaite ou un écho amoindri du prénom “Chloé”. Cette relation alambiquée est tissée de citations, en particulier sur l’impossibilité de l’amour, extraites du Petit Robert ou venues de voix moins anonymes: Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, Alfred Jarry, Élisabeth Badinter ou Michel Foucault, dont l’abondance semble refléter la déliaison généralisée de l’ouvrage. Le lecteur aura du mal à naviguer dans cet univers nébuleux, où l’autofiction confine à une “auto sciencefiction ” mâtinée d’envolées ésotériques. Les difficultés existentielles de l’écrivaine et ses drames personnels, qui arrivaient à se dire et à se lire dans ses récits préc édents, demeurent en grande partie, dans le présent ouvrage, impénétrables. Western Washington University Cécile Hanania DETAMBEL, RÉGINE. Opéra sérieux. Arles: Actes Sud, 2012. ISBN 978-2-330-00576-4. Pp. 136. 14,50 a. The subject of this case study is Elina Marsch, who descends into madness after her birth in 1926 to a team of opera singers, a soprano and a tenor. Her mother dies in childbirth and leaves Elina with birds in her head and a father who subsequently strings along mistresses from opera singers who accompany him on a worldwide career-long tour, from pre-War Europe to New York during the War. Elina’s birth was itself a musical event, alternating between the resonating voice of the crying baby and the silence of her dead mother. Elina the child becomes mute, in almost open hostility to those around her, like her nurse who continues to engage in sexual activities, as if in defiance to the deaths around them. This maternal silence marks Elina throughout her life, leading her to marvel at the whys and wherefores of death, both real and staged. In operas, Elina is attracted to staged death. Meanwhile, her father is a Lothario who brings his mistresses into his home with Elina. The father’s womanizing contrasts with Elina’s tepid introduction to sex, with silence that is almost comical. In subsequent trysts, she yawns to increase the sensitivity of her orgasms. Therein no cries and screams come from Elina. Her silence dominates her private life. Like the title, which contrasts with the genre of comic opera, the serious consequences of Elina’s frustrated sexual life recall Georges Bataille’s reflections, linking humor with sexual openness. The link between operatic voice and the larynx especially comes into play in this story. The larynx is a focus of attention for singers who attribute it with interacting sexual and professional effects. Operatic singers, notably Elina’s father, consult laryngologists for solutions to intermingled singing and sexual shortcomings. Somewhere in this mix between the larynx and sexual activity, hysteria ensues from the scream associated with violence, which has repercussions in this story as children disappear, police are murdered, and animals are sacrificed in a parade of victims to operatic stardom. The operatic world in which Elina becomes a diva engulfs her. As a child, she is a spectator of Madame Butterfly. This character and her fate are models for Reviews 991 Elina’s future. The birds in her head are never very far from her idiosyncratic behavior . Her mother’s silence not only haunts Elina but also marks her relationships to her father, her lover Roland, and the admired dancer Gladys. Sometimes Elina yawns, engages in gestural communications, or burns a costume from childhood to indicate that there is more than reticence to her lack of dialogue. She listens to her intellectual friend Doan who needs to justify suicide to her while reiterating her inevitable call to play the role of Madame Butterfly. Despite Elina’s...