After their successful first production The Woman Who Walked into Doors (2001), Kris Defoort and director Guy Cassiers are once again working together on a new opera. Their starting point is the novel The House of the Sleeping Beauties (1961) by Japanese author and Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata.

The book recounts the several visits by the old Mister Eguchi to a strange, tender brothel, where older men can spend the night beside the warm bodies of sedated, very young girls. It is a story about goodbyes, old age, and death.

Musical ideas came spontaneously while Kris Defoort was reading this quiet elegy. The voice, as an instrument, will be central in this opera. A choir of four female singers will describe the bodies of the sleeping girls, while a soprano sings what Mister Eguchi is thinking and doing. She will also use her voice for the descriptions of Nature, which are very important elements in this story.

The role of the old gentleman will be divided between a baritone and an actor. The bariton expresses Eguchi’s immediate impressions at first sight of the girls, and the memories they evoke of other women of his past. In that sense the bedroom becomes a space for voice and lyricism. Before Eguchi (the actor) opens the door to a room, however, at each visit he has a conversation with the brothel keeper. These dialogues about daily and concrete subjects will be performed by an actress and an actor. Inside and outside, singing and speaking: two melancholic worlds, yet different in colour, intensity and emotionality.

The performances in La Monnaie / De Munt (Brussels) take place during the Kunstenfestivaldesarts (B).

The performances in deSingel (Antwerp) and De Vlaamse Opera (Ghent) take place during Opera XXI - Biënnale Hedendaags Muziektheater (B).

The performances in de Rotterdamse Schouwburg take place during the Operadagen Rotterdam (NL).

The performances in La Ferme du Buisson (Marne la Vallée, FR) take place during Festival TEMPS D'IMAGES 2009 (FR).

The performances in La Filature (Mulhouse, FR) take place during the Musica - Festival international des musiques d'aujourd'hui de Strasbourg (FR).