After a five-year absence, Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt will return to the Quebec stages in 2024. Great success in Europe since 2019, The Secret of Madame Pylinska and Chopin is a show that combines biographical elements, literature, music and history, carried by the author who plays the three characters. THE Newspaper chatted with the famous writer.
Archive photo
They will be joining us next November for the Montreal Book Fair, later in 2024 with this show. What does Quebec mean to you?
“Apart from France and Belgium, Quebec is the country where I spent the most time. I find every opportunity to get there. With COVID, part of our lives have shifted into a temporal space. When I return to Quebec, I feel like I’m getting back on the boat of habits and travel. I explored Quebec a lot. It’s a place I like to be, because of the nature and the people.”
Tell me about The Secret of Madame Pylinska and Chopin whose text is inspired by your book published in 2018.
“I tell the story of the piano lessons of a young man of 20 (me) with Madame Pylinska, who lives in the religion of Chopin. She’s a bossy Polish Slav who has an opinion on everything and is as nice as a cactus (laughs). But she won’t just teach me how to play Chopin. She will teach me a real life lesson that will open me to others, to love and to sensuality. The piano, if you have to play it badly, is me (laughs). When I need to play it well, it is the great pianist Nicolas Stavy who accompanies me.”
your latest book, The Challenge of Jerusalem is a travel diary that tells about your stay in Israel. How do you feel about what is currently happening there?
“We are continually stunned by the barbarism. I cannot understand how hate prevents you from seeing the person in front of you; the greatest mystery of evil that we commit while believing we are doing good. I am impressed. This is a major setback to the possibility of peace.”
Do you still think such a friendship between the Muslim grocer and the young Jewish man in your work is possible? Mr. Ibrahim and the flowers of the Koran?
“Totally. This humanity must be our horizon line, we must not lose this horizon line. Last Sunday I played Monsieur Ibrahim and was happy to play this text that brings people together in their humanity, far from etiquette and appearances. Until my last With a breath, I will make myself an apostle of this: humanity comes first.”
What makes you most proud in your career?
“I feel like I’ve written lyrics that people don’t know are mine. Like a song that belongs to the one who sings it. My texts have a life of their own, even without me. This expropriation touches me.”
At 63, do you think you’ll quit one day?
“Absolutely not! I am in great shape and even more fertile than when I was young. I have no exhaustion of my imagination and enjoy what I did before. This is the advantage of growing up: we know ourselves and spare ourselves a certain amount Stupidity (laughs).”
When you were younger, did you imagine in your wildest dreams that one day you would be translated into 45 languages and performed in more than 50 countries?
“No, I didn’t imagine it. It worked almost right from the start, it was a surprise and a joy. For me, success is never a given, it is always a divine surprise.”
Do you have any writing projects?
“I am currently writing the 4th volume of my large novel cycle The Cycle of the Invisible*. It will be titled “The Light of Happiness” and will be set in 5th century AD Greece. It is scheduled for release in April. (*The Cycle of the Invisible is a series of eight stories, the first volumes of which have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.)
-The show The Secret of Madame Pylinska and Chopin will be presented on June 10th at the Salle Albert-Rousseau in Quebec on June 11 at the Théâtre Maisonneuve in Montreal. There The Quebec tour will continue in fall 2024. Tickets on sale now.