First, a general and frequently asked question: how did the idea of this project come to you?
The idea came out of the frustration of not finding the kind of script I wanted to write music for.
I kept trying in vain until one day I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and got down to work, writing my own musical tale.
In writing this tale, did you visualise music and images right away?
When writing an adventure scene you can’t help visualising images inside of it, which are later interpreted through the director’s input.
Music is different. In fact I write the story’s scenes in view of creating specific music for it. That means I hear the overall musical style during the process, though I seldom hear the individual details of the themes, melodies, etc. This kind of work requires a different state of mind. It means full focus and total dedication. So writing the story isn’t the most appropriate time for creating a thorough musical composition.
How did it go during the writing process? Where there slowdowns, unexpected time outs, a "blank sheet" anxiety?
I had an awful time getting the first minutes out. In the end, the full Helena project will be nearly five hours. It was crucial to steer it in the right direction from the first notes on. It put me under a lot of pressure, and I was frightened about failing.
The story is dedicated to Hélène Grimaud, an internationally renowned French pianist. What role did this play in the creation of the Helena project?
It had been two years since I read, with great admiration, her "Variations Sauvages". It seemed to me that reality was greater than fiction and that this outstanding musician had everything it took to make a fascinating hero. I had this in mind, but I couldn’t find the right idea. I was on my way to creating a totally different story when all of a sudden, it came to me. Hélène Grimaud, lost and confused in the middle of a Gothic fantasy world, where her wolves would protect her from terrifying creatures. It became "Helena and the Orchestra of the World of Mist".
Why a musical tale?
For a long time, I’ve admired and envied the era when Richard Wagner could create colossal pieces. Today, opera is still a wonderful musical media, but it seems to me that the theatrical form is no longer in sync with the 21st century. We are a generation of cinema, television and Internet. This might sound like provocation, but I enjoy that if Richard Wagner was here today, he would write musical tales on the Internet for everyone, instead of contemporary operas for the few. I’m trying to recreate the same process of blending text and music writing, with a fantasy world where instruments tell a story just as well as words do. That’s what Wagner was doing when he wrote his tetralogy.
What’s your relationship with the heroic fantasy world that Helena’s tale is based on?
Music that doesn’t make you dream is useless. A musical tale calls for a fantasy world where the characters live extraordinary adventures. Because we are not in the real world, the music can expand freely, and that’s a good thing. Through the heroic fantasy universe, many feelings and situations are driven to the extreme. They lead to stronger and more interesting illustrations.
One can easily spot two great passions of Helena which are; music, through her virtuoso piano playing, and the animal world, with her love for wolves and horses: Why those two drives instead of others?
Surely for many reasons, though the first that comes my mind is that they are both values I share completely. I love music, I love horses, I’m deeply involved in the fight to save endangered species and the environment they live in. In addition, those are the values Hélène Grimaud represents as a source of inspiration for the Helena character.
