In 1964, twenty-seven year old Philip Glass moved to Paris to study under eminent composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. Not only was this vitally important for his training as a composer but it also gave him the opportunity to immerse himself into French culture including theatre, music and the films of the Nouvelle Vague. He would pursue this interest in the 1990s by writing three operas inspired by the films of writer and director Jean Cocteau.

In 2021, Katia and Marielle Labèque created the instrumental suites for two pianos taken from the third of the operas ‘Les Enfants Terribles’, which Glass wrote in 1996. The success of these encouraged the sisters to ask Glass to complete the trilogy by writing piano suites based on the other two Cocteau films, ‘Orphée’ and ‘La Belle et la Bête’.

Katia and Marielle Labèque (photo. Umberto Nicoletti)

This evening all three of these works were performed in a wonderful concert by the Labèque sisters at the Auditorium in Bordeaux. All three were performed superbly with great energy and enthusiasm. The sisters play with perfectly synchronised movement even in the most complex of sections. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Philip Glass: ‘Orphée’ (1993); ‘La Belle et la Bête’ (1994); ‘Les Enfants Terrbles’ (1996).