The penal colony established at Ilet à Guillaume in 1863 stands as one of the most troubling chapters in the institutional history of La Réunion, and a new production by the association Amadeus is bringing that record of official failure back before the public. Titled “Les bagnes d’enfants, d’Ilet à Guillaume aux enfants du Levant,” the opera blends song, theatre and dance and will be staged in La Réunion before travelling to the Casino de Paris in March 2027.
The historical facts the work confronts are stark. In 1863, four missionaries purchased a modest plot of land at Ilet à Guillaume, in the north of Saint-Denis, and installed there a penal colony of grim renown. Between 1864 and 1879, between 3,000 and 4,000 children were sent to the site to be “corrected,” on the fallacious pretext of vagabondage or petty theft. Judged to be in need of being set back on the right path, these children were reduced to the condition of convicts or slaves, forced to work in the fields and to take part in the construction of roads, bridges and even a church. The colony effectively became an open-air prison, where acts of mistreatment unfolded amid general indifference and total impunity.
It is precisely that question of impunity, and of a society’s collective responsibility for how it treats its children, that the production seeks to keep alive. Amadeus, an artistic outreach association unique in La Réunion, has spent nearly twenty-five years making cultural action and arts education its commitment to the invisible and to social causes, staging pedagogical works designed to raise public awareness of social issues, particularly those concerning children. The association frames its projects within a philosophy of education and of a collective adventure, and its leadership argues that no society can durably constitute a people without shared narratives, without shared memory, and without spaces capable of turning those histories into lived human experience.
The new opera draws on “Les enfants du Levant,” a work for children’s choir and soloists by the composer Isabelle Aboulker. The libretto has been adapted to the history of the Ilet à Guillaume penal colony with the help of the Lazaret and the historian Véronique Blanchard, whose contribution served to cross-check destinies and to safeguard the historical truth of certain lines, notably those delivered in Creole. The result, according to those behind the project, is a vibrant, sensitive and poetic piece that gives voice and form to what archives alone cannot express.
The production is carried by young artists and professionals under the direction of Lydie Rodriguez, the association’s artistic director, and of the choreographer, stage director and scenographer Véronique Asencio. Beyond its artistic and memorial ambition, which its creators see as contributing to a contemporary Reunionese cultural fresco, the work is explicitly framed as educational, artistic and civic, inviting audiences to interrogate history, memory and heritage, and to explore notions of resilience, dignity and transmission.
The project follows a pattern of socially engaged productions by the association. “Li Té VE War,” a musical work also led by Lydie Rodriguez, was a model of success in uniting amateur and professional worlds, and the cultural and entrepreneurial spheres, in the service of transmitting memory and valuing Reunionese culture: it played more than twenty times in La Réunion, filled the Casino de Paris twice, and toured the Indian Ocean. More recently, “Rose et Rose” addressed school bullying, a sensitive and painful subject that gave a voice to victims, in keeping with the association’s commitment to the invisible.
According to its creators, the new opera also resonates with present-day social realities, questioning how society treats children today and, more broadly, the collective responsibility attached to how the public regards and acts on that reality. Telling this story, the association insists, is not only about the past; it is about facing it lucidly.
The work will be presented to school audiences and the general public at the TEAT Plein Air on 9 December 2026 at 8pm, at the Cité des Arts on 9 February 2027, and at the TEAT Champ Fleuri on 11 March 2027 for schools and 12 March 2027 for the general public. The Casino de Paris performance is scheduled for 25 March 2027, with the Reunionese artist Christine Salem in the first half. Information is available at [email protected].