In order to mark a decade of partnership with the Opera of Reims and thank the public from Reims for their loyalty, Thierry Malandain has created with his company a new ballet for 10 dancers entitled Une Dernière chanson, in April 2012.

In 2001, the record came out Aux marches du Palais, a collection of « ballads and laments of the France of yesteryear », chiselled by Vincent Dumestre and Le Poème Harmonique. At that time, Thierry MAlandain would have liked to use thaht album of traditional songs, but as he had already used Benjamin Britten’s Folksongs and those by Luciano Berio for other creations, not to mention a Tristan et Yseult supported by medieval music or yet, traditional Breton tunes used for Blé noir, he felt he had to wait for t right moment.

Now, for this anniversary, he felles free to offer whatever he likes, hesitating between one of Beethoven’s last sonatas and Aux marches du palais dy Vincent Dumestre. He finally chose that album of day-dreaming inducing songs. In his own words : « it is a light-hearted, bubbly ballet intended as a moment of humanity to forget for a short while our tough, worried existence, saddened by all that our heart and reason cannot accept. » A ballet leading to the most tender emotions. And even if it veers towards melancholy, even if the shivers of death run through it, the richness of its poetry will give the charm of all taht ends well. Just the way one enjoys the last drink, the last ray of the sun, the last song.