Suzushi Hanayagi

Impressed by Jean Cocteau’s rewrite of Antigone, Stravinsky asked the poet for an adaptation of Oedipus Rex. The resulting libretto brings together the key scenes of Sophocles’s tragedy translated by the Abbé Jean Daniélou into Latin—a language that, according the composer, “is not dead but engraved in stone, and so imposing that it is immune to any popularization”.

Poor Madame Butterfly! The 15-year-old geisha, who has renounced her family and Japanese traditions for the love of an American naval officer, finds herself abandoned in favour of a Western wife.

Robert Wilson and the dancer Suzushi Hanayagi bring to life Paul Cezanne’s painting, “La Femme à la Cafetière”.