Depuis le Jour
- Choreographer: Gemma Bond
- Music: Gustave Chapentier, Act III aria from Louise
- Costumes: Gemma Bond
- Lighting: Serena Wong
- World Premiere: November 2012, Toronto, Erik Bruhn Prize competition
- PBT Performance Date: March 24-27, 2022 at August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh
Program Notes
Depuis le Jour is the first work by Gemma Bond to enter PBT’s
repertoire.
THE MUSIC
Depuis le Jour is a pas de deux set to an aria from the opera Louise by Gustave Chapentier. The opera premiered in 1900 and today, though the full work is not a staple in opera company repertories, this familiar aria is. The aria has been performed and recorded by many of the world’s most famous sopranos, including the great Renée Fleming.
Louise is notable because it is the first example of verisimo, or realism/naturalism, in French opera. Verisimo style originally emerged in Italian opera as a trend to focus subject matter and themes on the lives of everyday people.
In Louise the title character is a young dressmaker in Paris, torn between her devoted and hard-working parents and her new love, the free-spirited Julien. She ultimately chooses her lover, leaving her father in despair.
Louise sings the Depuis le jour aria at the opening of the third act. She’s beginning her new life with Julien, and from their cottage, which overlooks the bohemian Montmartre area of the city, she sings about her happiness.