V.ii. Duel and Deaths - French Rock Opera

Three songs close Johnny Hallyday's rock opera: Le duel (The Duel), La mort d'Hamlet (The Death of Hamlet) and Le rideau tombe (The Curtain Falls). We will take each one in turn, with the French lyrics followed by my literal and unpoetic translations.

Le Duel
Elle peut venir quand il faut pas
Comme un cheveu sur la soupe
Comme un as sous la coupe
Au moment de dire «bonjour»
Au beau milieu de l’amour
C’est tellement con la mort !
Je vous souhaite le bonjour, Monsieur
Et si c’est le dernier
Je vous souhaite la belle mort, Monsieur

Elle peut venir de n’importe où
Elle peut vous tomber d’en haut
Comme l’éclair ou le couteau
Ou bien venir de trop bas
Comme le serpent, le Judas
C’est tellement con la mort !
Je vous souhaite le bonjour, Monsieur
Et si c’est le dernier
Je vous souhaite la belle mort, Monsieur

Elle peut venir n’importe quand
Au printemps comme en hiver
Qu’on sen moque ou qu’on l’espère
Qu’on soit deux ou seul pleurant
Mais jamais au bon moment
C’est tellement beau la vie !

The Duel
It can come when it shouldn't
Like a hair in your soup
Like an ace up your sleeve
When it's time to say "hello"
In the middle of love
Death is so stupid!
I wish you good day, sir
And if it's the last
I wish you good death, sir

It can come from anywhere
It can fall on you from above
Like lightning or a knife
Or come from too low
Like the serpent, the Judas
Death is so stupid!
I wish you good day, sir
And if it's the last
I wish you good death, sir

It can come at any time
In the spring or the winter
Whether we mock it or hope for it
Whether we're two or crying alone
But never at the right moment
Life is so beautiful!
Life is so beautiful!
Life is so beautiful!

Representing the duel of swords between Hamlet and Laertes (the knife) AND the duel of wits between Hamlet and Claudius (the serpent) both, the song also smacks of the "readiness is all speech". Death is unpredictable, but inevitable. The opera is more overtly romantic than any other adaptation of the play, and The Duel makes sure to reference love interrupted, and in French, plays on the similar sound of "l'amour" (love) and "la mort" (death), so that in Hallyday's accent, one might hear/sing those words interchangeably. In other words, "love is stupid" as much as death is, because they are intertwined anyway. Sex as death is a common literary trope, and Ophelia has died from love denied. She looms large in the opera, and in these final moments. The Duel starts out as fun ditty that recalls the macabre humor of the gravedigger scene (presented as bowling with skulls in the opera), until the very last lines when, it seems, Hamlet goes from thumbing his nose at death to realizing life is beautiful - in the end, he doesn't want to die - and the song heads right into The Death of Hamlet.

The Death of Hamlet has only one line, repeated over and over, and that's "Je l'aimais!" ("I loved her"). It's a lament, passionate regret, and with each heartbreaking repetition, Hamlet's voice grows more desperate, weaker, until he dies. The music's driving beat, his heart. His last thoughts in the opera are not for Fortinbras, or Horatio, or himself, but for the woman he loved badly and lost.

The Curtain Falls acts as an epilogue/summary, with a choir singing what is essentially a dirge. An apocalyptic one:

Le rideau tombe
Quelques vérités
Un peu de passion
Un fil de l'épée
Un peu de poison
Et le rideau tombe
C'est la fin du monde

Un peu de colère
Un peu de souffrance
Un peu de prière
Si peu d'importance
Et le rideau tombe
C'est la fin du monde

The Curtain Falls
A few truths
A little passion
The stab of a sword
A little poison
And the curtain falls
It's the end of the world

A little anger
A little suffering
A little prayer
So little importance
And the curtain falls
It's the end of the world

Written as a recipe for tragedy, the song downplays the epic nature of the play and gives it an existentialist mortality. All of that, and for what? The futility of life and the anticlimax of death. And yet, it's the end of the world. The world on stage. The world created in Hamlet's image. A character that contains the whole world in his scope and breadth.

And this marks the end of the project as it was originally set out, covering those specific adaptations in detail. Which doesn't mean it's over. The label "Other Hamlets" still needs to be filled with versions we haven't discussed yet.