Shawandy,

is an idea that I have carried within me for a long time.
After the war, which was a traumatic experience for the child I was then, American cinema of the 1940s, and especially musicals, transported me to a world of imaginary conventions where everyday problems found their solutions in a song or a ballet. Until the end of the 1960s, in Paris where I lived, poverty was not immediately perceptible. There were tramps under the bridges, a few accordion players at the metro entrances, but one did not perceive then the beginnings of the poverty that was spreading.
As the years passed, unfortunately, nothing could be ignored any longer.
In the 1990s, the route to my office passed through the Chatelet road tunnel. Near its exit was a shelter where destitute people found shelter. They slept there, in cardboard boxes, and the number grew each day.
It was during these journeys that the idea for the opera was born, that of a departure towards distant horizons, a utopian dream of a return to Paradise Lost.
Alas! Things are not so simple.
Today, misery is unfortunately still there and Shawandy a
sad reality.
I approached the writing and composition of Shawandy from a poetic perspective. The music has an intense emotional power. While using systems far removed from the tonal, I tried, in my melodic and harmonic choices, to maintain a perceptible discourse. The venue, it seemed to me, was not appropriate for daring musical experiments.
So, Shawandy is classical in form; divided into acts, scenes and tableaux.
The setting will alternate between the abandoned metro station (where the drama takes place) and the imaginary world, from shadow to light, from sadness to joy.
Finally, the heroine's death is the necessary sacrifice that allows this passage from shadow to light. Shawandy could not be just a musical. The tragic dimension reinforces the drama of these destitute people and allows them to free themselves from the misery to which we have confined them.