Lot n° 218
Estimation :
2000 - 2500
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 1 350EUR
VIAN Boris (1920-1959). - Lot 218
VIAN Boris (1920-1959).
2 autograph MANUSCRIPTS, The French Hunter, Musical in 3 acts, [1955]; 133 and 137 pages in-4 (edges frayed on some leaves).
Two versions, very different, of this musical.
"The whole plot starts from the matrimonial announcements that this newspaper [Le Chasseur français] receives, by the hundreds and thousands, and on the necessity to control - here by the office of a detective named Justin Blairjuste - the honesty of these offers of mating. However, the Série Noire - which is the basis of Série Blême - is no stranger to Le Chasseur Français. Angéline, Marquise de Piripin, is intoxicated by it and seeks, through the newspaper's advertisements, the strong emotions described and, she thinks, experienced by the authors of the collection. The "young first", Jacques, a philosophy graduate, earns his living under the pseudonym of Tom Collins, an "American" author of novels from the Série Noire, but he hides from it because he would like to marry a "pure young girl" who happens to be, in a first twist, the Marquise's young daughter" (Noël Arnaud, Les vies parallèles de Boris Vian, p. 361).
Numerous references and allusions to personalities of the time, starting with Marcel Duhamel and his Série Noire ("people are transformed / into so many skimmers"), as well as his homonym Georges Duhamel, the conductor Robert Benzine, André Gide, Paul Claudel, Fernandel, or the R.P. Brique (transparent caricature of the worldly Dominican Bruckberger)
The first manuscript is written in turquoise ink on the front of 94 sheets of pale yellow paper, with numerous erasures and corrections. Following, 39 unpaginated sheets of paper present the drafts of the lyrics of the songs to be integrated into the piece, such as these: "Nothing keeps company / Like a glass of wine / It makes you see life / In beautiful pink spinach"; "I don't like to read Voltaire / I don't care about André Gide"; "I am the master of mystery / I sneak into every corner".
The second manuscript, also in turquoise ink on the same paper, on 136 sheets, is a clean-up, integrating the songs, with important variants compared to the primitive version; it presents some erasures and corrections. It is preceded by the list of characters, under the signed title "Le Chasseur français Comédie musicale en 3 actes de B. Vian".
The play was published in 1970 in the Théâtre inédit by Christian Bourgois; set to music by Stéphane Varègues, it was premiered in December 1975 by Pierre Peyrou and Arlette Thomas, at the Théâtre Présent à la Villette.
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