Libretto and score for a phantom opera: the debate between Claude Gauvreau and Pierre Mercure debate about Vampire et la nymphomane
“Refus d’un cantonnement dans la seule bourgade plastique” wrote Borduas in Refus global. In 1948, abstraction became the mandatory path signalling the break with artistic tradition. Since the 1980s, much critical attention has focused on the multi-disciplinary aspect of the activities of the Automatist group. Having written the libretto for the opera Le Vampire et la nymphomane – a work created in close collaboration with Pierre Mercure –the poet Claude Gauvreau was the most vociferous voice defending the place of music within the Montreal group. This study first looks at the main components of this contribution, then explores the causes, based on the surrealist ideal, of the public disagreement between Claude Gauvreau and Pierre Mercure in 1949 over the opera Le Vampire et la nymphomane. An unpublished letter that Gauvreau wrote to André Breton finally reveals some of the core ideas behind the fascination and rejection that marked the exchanges between Automatism and Surrealism.