If you want to see the very beautiful dance, Mats Ek offers at the Opera Garnier, a stunning triptych riding on the Nineteenth, the Twentieth and Twenty-first centuries. Three works fingerprints of the style, which is so recognizable choreographer Swedish. First, an entry in the directory with Carmen , followed by two creations, Another place and Bolero . For Carmen , Mats Ek has chosen the version reinvented by Rodion Chtchedrine. A suite – inspired by the opera of Bizet, and – that the Russian composer had written for his wife, the famous ballerina Maya Plissetskaïa. We discover another Carmen in the colors alien, who would have borrowed a few traits to the Arlésienne, another heroine of Bizet. The madness of love, in the eyes of Mats Ek, is both violent and trivial: the heroine rips out the heart of her suitor literally and figuratively. All the paradox of the protagonists is: they throw themselves headlong into an all-consuming passion, and never abandon their defenses impenetrable. The gesture is sometimes very raw, almost sexually explicit, and that being said, it remains in the grandiose. The music and the dancing will stretch, surprise, and the sets are sumptuous. The relationship with the opera of Bizet is obvious, however, that the choreographer takes us elsewhere.

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After the intermission, we discover on the Sonata in b minor for piano Liszt, Another place , a two. Despite its novelty, this piece seems dated. A couple, a man and a woman, looking for without ever finding. The man, still fleeing, ends up falling in the pit (the orchestra pit). Together, they bear the burden of life – Is this happiness?- before ending up on a table in front of a landscape (the sublime home of the dance) they do not look, it is led by a man and by another.

Change of scenery and, behold, Bolero , on the legendary music of Ravel. Here we find a Mats Ek more absurd, who likes to demystify the big dance with everyday objects, as summarized in this table of a man filling a bath tub with a bucket. The choreographer is grown here, a dance where body movements, especially of the hands, aims for something other than the simple ornament. It is both in the real and, moreover, in the face of our human complexity unfathomable and inexplicable. A great show.

Palais-Garnier until the 14th of July