Pushing open the door at 8 rue Marivaux, you don’t easily enter what looks like a crypt for corpses. First, you have to move aside a body… Human? Animal? Wrapped in a white shroud and hanging like a skinned ox in a butcher shop. As you cross the room, you see a skull placed on a table along with some other unsettling objects. The light is blood-colored, and a dark smoke fills the space, preventing you from seeing more than five meters ahead. Upon reaching the center, the table, covered with a blood-red cloth (the theme color of the evening!), is soiled with cobwebs.

It’s hard to describe the “ghost train” that Valérie Lesort, its creator and director, takes us on. The result is wildly chaotic, dripping with gore, filled with student-like gags leaning towards the macabre, but ultimately quite captivating, provided you accept the terms of the journey – and leave behind certain conventions of the classical music world. Haendel and Purcell make up the musical program.

Soprano Judith Fa and baritone Lionel Peintre are in action, while V. Lesort, in a ghostly guise, with a human hand stuck in her hair, plays an extra and sound effect artist. And let’s not forget Martin Surot: he plays the piano – very well! – and sometimes the synthesizer (the situation shouldn’t make us forget that he’s a great vocal coach), but also takes on a role that will lead him to accept having his heart ripped out – he’s fine, thank you.

A VR experience based on the show directed by Valérie Lesort, for the Opéra Comique.