Deutsche Grammophon releases the entire “Cocteau Trilogy” by Philip Glass, in a version for two pianos by the Labèque sisters.

French pianist-sister pair Katia and Marielle Labèque tomorrow release a double album dedicated to Philip Glass’s Cocteau Trilogy: the three operatic chamber compositions that the American composer composed between 1993 and 1996 to accompany Jean Cocteau’s films Orphée, La Belle et la Bête and Les Enfants Terribles.

In 2020, Katia and Marielle Labèque recreated Les Enfants Terribles for two pianos –with an arrangement specially made for them by Michael Riesman, the music director of the Philip Glass Ensemble– and the result was so successful that they contacted Glass to complete the set with the two remaining operas of Cocteau’s Trilogy: Orphée and La Belle et la Bête, which Deutsche Grammophon is releasing tomorrow as a double album, Philip Glass. Cocteau Trilogy. The live premiere of the recording will take place in the concert hall of the Cité de la musique de la Philharmonie de Paris over four days, from 7 to 10 March inclusive, in a show featuring a stage design by Nina Chalot and artistic direction by Cyril Teste.

Cocteau’s Trilogy will soon travel to the Opéra National de Bordeaux (23 March), the Cité musicale de Metz (27 March), the National Concert Hall in Dublin (15 June), the Barbican Center in London (17 June), the Les Nuits de Fourvière festival in Lyon (28 June), and La Comète Scène Nationale de Châlons-en-Champagne (5 and 6 February 2025), all of which are co-producers of the show. In addition, on 24 August it will also be offered at the Ravel Festival in the Basque-French town of Saint Jean De Luz.