The French (also German and Russian) text is by the composer based on the novel of the same title by Boris Vian.
All of these are veiled and transformed in some way, and even the quotation from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde has a jazzy hue.
The premiere performance was given on 15 March 1986 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, conducted by John Burdekin and directed by Jean-Claude Fall.
Chick plays an improvisation on Duke Ellington themes and then tells him about Alise, the niece of Nicolas, whom he met at the conference of Jean-Sol Partre (a broad hint on Jean-Paul Sartre).
3rd Tableau: At Isis Alise tells Colin that Chick does not want to marry her, because he spends all his money on the books by Jean-Sol Partre.
Chloé is frightened by the vision of strange fish-scale beasts, smoke and dirt of the copper mines.
Intermezzo: The Medical Quarter, the channel with some fragments of bloody cotton, the eye gazing to Colin and Chloé 8th Tableau: The pharmacy Colin and Chick are in a strange pharmacy with a guillotine for recipes and a mechanical rabbit making pills.
Alise enters and tells Colin that Chick spent all his money on the books by Jean-Sol Partre, and now wants to separate from her.
Intermezzo: Alise sets fire to the bookshops with the books by Jean-Sol Partre 13th Tableau: Chloé’s death The dialogue between Colin and Jesus nailed to the cross.
The little girl sings a song about the dead town 14th Tableau: An Epilogue Dialogue of Cat and Mouse.
Colin et Chloé, suite from the opera L'écume des jours (The Foam of Days) for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, chorus and orchestra (1981) 36' Text by Boris Vian (French)