It's under the sign of Proteus that Jean de La Fontaine's works seem to have been put together, as the poet's writing has followed different ways: novel, tale, elegy or theatre, or even religious poetry or scientific poetry. Change figures innervate its work: images of time passing by, of death - the ultimate transformation - or else of endlessly flowing water. Through his readings, La Fontaine has proven his interest in a well identified litterary tradition: the long poem, he offered to Fouquet in 1658, Adonis, took its inspiration from one of Ovid's Metamorphoses and Psyche is a novel finding its sources in Apuleius' Metamorphoses.

Whether he locates the ordinary metamorphoses which ponctuate our daily life, like unfolding of seasons and different ages of life, whether he unveils the hidden face of things, or he comes to create by himself metamorphoses, which we are invited to believe in, the poet fits in a manner to see life, to represent it through dramatisation. The plural figure worn by his genius and the rich colour span which characterises his works are reflects of a vision of the world, where movement wins over stability, where certitudes waver unceasingly, where instant reigns as a master.

From the dreamlike charms of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream to Purcell's Fairy Queen's pieces, through a journey in time in the heart of french song or a fantastic wandering through Ovid's Metamorphoses via a magic lantern, the 2008 edition of Festival Jean de La Fontaine should raise most diverse emotions. Placed under the double sign of fickleness and illusion, this new metamorphosis of the yearly event should fulfill the expectations of all theatre and music lovers.

Anne-Madeleine Goulet (Transl. by A.T.)