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FULL An Eye for an Eye – a wild evening with the Papin Sisters (David Knotts) London 2012 Rebecca de Pont Davies, Jessica Walker
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: An Eye for an Eye – a wild evening with the Papin Sisters
- Composer: Knotts David
- Libretto: Jessica Walker Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: London, UK
- Recorded: August 11 & 12, 2012
- Type: Staged Opera Live
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
An Eye for an Eye – a wild evening with the Papin Sisters, takes the true story of the two maids who committed one of the most shocking crimes in French history, and transforms it into a riotous and gruesome cabaret opera. Thrills, spills and eye-popping entertainment!
Genesis
The Papin sisters were two incestuous maids in 1930’s France who gouged out their employers’ eyes and sliced through their thighs with knives, after a trivial argument over a blown fuse. All France became captivated by the case of Christine and Lea, and what could have motivated such senseless murders. We decided there was no more fitting way to delve into the minds of these disturbed young women, than with a grotesque sung cabaret…
Tonight’s performance is of the first seven short scenes. Two performers play all the characters A bourgeois house in Le Mans – 2nd February 1933
Madame Lancellin is holding a masquerade party at her house, during which she hopes to find her unattractive daughter, Genevieve, a husband. Down in the kitchen, the two maids, Christine and Lea, attend to the myriad preparations for the party. Christine works fast while Lea lags behind. The maids’ arduous work is constantly disturbed by Madame’s new electric bell. Her demands for the evening become increasingly detailed and impossible to achieve. Their endeavors are also disturbed by Genevieve, who dreams of having Lea as her personal maid, and wants Christine ejected from the house. Tensions rise as Christine rushes around covering up for Lea’s mistakes, and Genevieve stirs up trouble by suggesting to her mother that she has observed something unnatural between the two sisters. The unreliable electricity falters, and eventually fails under the strain of over-use, causing a blackout, and leading to remonstrations from Madame that the maids’ wages will be docked. In the darkness, Christine clutches Lea and discovers a pendant given to her by Genevieve. She orders Lea to fetch knives from the kitchen, and together they murder their two employers.