Bernard Salles is a French-Catalan composer, conductor and double bass player. Gabaston is his second opera. Although he is best known as a composer of music for the double bass, much of which has been played and recorded by some of the foremost double bass players of our time, his repertoire also includes many large scale symphonic works (concertos, symphonies, symphonic poems etc.). For a complete overview of Bernard's career in music, please visit his website here.


"The idea of writing Gabaston came to me in quite a strange way. Firstly, my partner, who is English, told me about this tumultuous and tragic episode in the history of her country – but the tale was of particular interest to me because, for many years, I lived just a couple of miles from Gabaston, the little French village where Piers Gaveston originally hailed from! Although two operas have recently been written on the same subject (Edward II by Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini in 2017 and Lessons in Love and Violence by George Benjamin in 2018), the story had taken hold in my mind and I wanted to create my own version. My musical language is very different from that of Scartazzini or Benjamin. The libretto and the music, rather than focusing on Edward or his homosexuality instead bring to the fore the very real feelings between the two protagonists, and Gabaston’s tragic death before their impossible love. It is an opera that explores the time-old theme of passionate yet thwarted love, except here, the female singers have secondary roles and it is the tenor who will meet his tragic end, leaving the baritone heartbroken."
Bernard Salles 2023