Les Illuminations

Bringing together Benjamin Britten's Les Illiuminations and Claude Debussy's Ariettes Oubliées is like peeking behind the door to one of the most mythical bedrooms in literary history. There sit the poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, working frantically away. They write on loose sheets of paper, promissory notes and receipts. The ink drips, the papers are full of wine stains and food scraps. They are unwashed and unshaven. They drink, quarrel and sleep with each other. Verlaine writes texts that will be included in the collection of poems Romances sans paroles, taken by Debussy as a starting point for Ariettes Oubliées. The poems that Rimbaud is working on will much later be published as Les Illuminations.