A one-act, one-voice and one-instru­ment opera, The Dark trans­forms a young critic’s review into a tem­por­al flurry.

Mar­ie-Pierre Brébant, a musi­cian who works reg­u­larly with oth­er per­form­ing arts, and author-per­former Gab­ri­el Gau­th­i­er are work­ing on an opera about the cre­at­ive pro­cess itself. A crit­ic is sent to Lon­don to review a dance piece per­formed at dusk in Kens­ing­ton gar­dens, close to the statue of Peter Pan. He doesn’t know any­thing about the piece apart from its title – The Dark – which leads him to delve into a tun­nel of ques­tions, memor­ies and fantas­ies. This psy­cho­lo­gic­al wan­der­ing makes him miss the per­form­ance, but he still writes his art­icle any­way. A rev­er­ie about what we don’t see, what we don’t know and what we can’t exper­i­ence, The Dark is meant to play on the enchant­ment of the duet between a sing­er and a clavi­chord, one of the old­est key­board instru­ments – a quest with no Grail for a lost piece whose shad­ow is all that remains.