A careful reading of L’étranger shows that Camus experimented with certain structures and patterns that can be affiliated with music. L’étranger can be read as a musical score: concerning the form, the novel infers a musical logic in terms of structure and motivic development. It also contains innumerable sound-effect descriptions, which, apart from their direct sound references, provide a narrative rhythm which contribute to the creation of a deep psychological atmosphere close to the ones we find in traditional operas.
The awareness of the architecture of music is significant in relation to his own ability to create music-like structures in his writing […] in relation to Bach´s art of composing particularly the aspect that emphasize complex, multilayered contrapuntal relationships.
Opera, is a perfect media to transmit philosophical concepts, because it is an art that is not beyond words, not without them, but in between words. Following Camus´ existential journey through the human condition, this proposal is not willing to describe Camus´ philosophy of absurd, but to build a Stimmung where the audience can reflect on that concept, instead of into the explanation of it. An opera can create complex and psychological landscapes, which transmitting feelings rather than intellectual statements.
The narrative of L’étranger is quite simple and can be described in few lines, thing that we will gladly do. But what brings the attention in L’étranger is the philosophical aspect that emerges from this narrative line, that turns a novel into a treatise on existentialism.