Rossini - L'Italiana in Algeri (Palais Garnier - Paris 2014)

Gioachino Rossini - L'Italiana in Algeri

Opéra National de Paris, 2014

Riccardo Frizza, Andrei Serban, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Antonino Siragusa, Varduhi Abrahamyan, Tassis Christoyannis, Jaël Azzaretti, Anna Pennisi, Nahuel Di Pierro

Palais Garnier, Paris - 7 April 2014

Taking nothing away from Rossini as a composer or the undoubted qualities that are to be found in many of his works, but expectations are never likely to be very high for yet another production of L'Italiana in Algeri. It's not the most sophisticated of works, it doesn't have a particularly great libretto or originality in its situation, and there's only so much mileage in the humour. Dashed off with customary speed to a tight deadline moreover, Rossini simply reused music from other works - which in itself isn't uncommon for this composer, but in this case the music was often written for works in a completely different context that would appear to make it unsuited for use in an opera buffa. On the other hand, a production of L'Italiana in Algeri can make for a very entertaining night at the opera, if it's done right.

The very least you can say about Andrei Serban's production of L'Italiana in Algeri for the Paris Opera however is that it's entertaining. It might not make a lot of sense, it's inconsistent and somewhat nonsensical in its concept and design, but in that respect it suits the nature of the work itself. It helps however if you have a strong cast that is capable of injecting some life and additional humour into the work, and it's hard to find any serious fault with the performances in this 2014 revival of the Paris production at the Palais Garnier. In some respects it might feel a bit routine and calculated, but again, that's something that's largely inherent within the opera itself. It's not exactly a work that is going to open itself up to radical reinterpretation.

That doesn't mean however that the work can't benefit from a distinctive touch, and in Serban's case, grotesque exaggeration and a sense of randomness is the name of the game. Right from the start we are treated to a grand chorus of eunuchs in fat suits, who go as far as to exhibit their credentials (or lack of them in this case) as they bend over at the start of Act II. Bathing beauties in bikinis splash around in glass tubs (without water) and are sort of anointed for no apparent reason by flamingos borne on the top of the heads of female servants. There's a huge rose that appears to be a representation of the sun, or possibly love or the heat of desire. The ship that brings Isabella to Turkey and lies shipwrecked at the bottom of the sea looks rather like the Titanic, while Isabella is promptly captured and put in a cage by a man in a gorilla suit. There appears to be no rhyme or reason for any of these choices.

Period realism then evidently isn't a consideration, and nor should it be, it seems, as long as it looks good and at least gives the right impression. It's probably fair to say that the impression of comic exaggeration that Serban settles for is one which he considers as being in the nature of the work itself, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that judgement. L'Italiana in Algeri is a silly comedy, but also an entertaining one, and the director pitches this production firmly in that style. So if you want to give the impression of the Bey Mustafa as being a bit of a tyrant who is full of himself and used to getting his own way, that impression is clearly evident in his dress and demeanour. All gold and guns, looking like a north African or middle-Eastern despot; he's the king of bling in a shiny suit.

As similar sense of exaggeration - or obviousness - is applied elsewhere as the Italianisms set in, with Mustafa's men all dressed like Mafia dons in pin-striped suits with wide shoulders, waving pistols and gesticulating into mobile phones. A bit random, a bit obvious, but it gets the right impression across. The 'pappataci' scene is no place for subtlety evidently, and Serban's production consequently goes all out for cliché, with a dancing bottle of wine, a floppy pizza and a couch representing the attributes of the Italian male that Mustafa wishes to bear as a badge of honour. As over-emphasised as this is, it's fine. The stage is filled with colour and it illustrates the absurdity of the situation and the libretto. It's not to be taken seriously.

The stage direction is also mostly fine, if often quite outlandish with the gorilla wandering around, but it suits the content. In particular, Isabella's playing of the three males on a Dali lip-couch is neatly choreographed and amusingly played, the Pappataci scene works well and certainly raises a smile, while the ensemble finale of Act I achieves exactly the right kind of impact. In fact, Serban is at his best when he has to orchestrate chorus and ensemble singing, always making the scenes interesting. Solo scenes and arias tend to be a little more hit and miss, and that's usually where the random elements are slipped in. There's not a lot else you can do with personality or motivation in the direction of these characters.

It more down to the cast to bring some personality to their roles and Rossini at least gives each of them plenty of opportunity to make an impression. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo has plenty of swagger and arrogance as Mustafa and sang reasonably well, but it did seem a little routine. Antonino Siragusa stepped in to replace the advertised Kenneth Tarver as Lindoro and while it's not necessary to have an actual Italian singer in the role (evidently since Juan Diego Flórez is still currently the best Rossinian tenor in this kind of comic role), it certainly benefited from Siragusa having precisely the right kind of voice and delivery for the role. By no means perfect - there are few who can master the demands of roles like this - it was nonetheless played and sung with considerable aplomb. I also enjoyed the comic side of Tassis Christoyannis' performance, and his singing of the role was faultless.

Varduhi Abrahamyan however rightly dominated proceedings as Isabella. She looked the part and sang it well, lacking perhaps only a little bit of feistiness that might have given the performance an extra edge. The same could be said about the orchestra under the direction of Riccardo Frizza. It was a little too 'nice' and could have used a little more of an injection of energy, but the playing was superb and it was a fine interpretation. Despite the rushed nature of its composition, there is - as always with Rossini - much elegance in the musical writing and arrangements of L'Italiana in Algeri and that was certainly evident here. Not the most exciting production of L'Italiana in Algeri then in Paris, a little too 'respectful' and routine, but certainly entertaining.

Rameau - Hippolyte et Aricie

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Hippolyte et Aricie

Opéra National de Paris, 2012

Emmanuelle Haïm, Ivan Alexandre, Sarah Connolly, Anne-Catherine Gillet, Andrea Hill, Jaël Azzaretti, Salomé Haller, Aurélia Legay, Topi Lehtipuu, Stéphane Degout, François Lis, Marc Mauillon, Aimery Lefèvre, Manuel Nuñez Camelino, Nicholas Mulroy, Jérôme Varnier

Palais Garnier, Paris, 9 July 2012

This new production of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie comes at an interesting time in the recent revival of French Baroque opera. While William Christie has moved on to investigate further back through the works of Cavalli, Charpentier and Lully, the arrival - or so it seems - of Rameau’s first opera is freshly put into historical context. In some respects this works in its favour, allowing us to better understand the impact and the influence that Rameau would have on the world of French opera, but on the other hand, through Ivan Alexandre’s rather old-fashioned traditional production, the work suffers in comparison to the efforts that Christie and his collaborators have made towards making these works accessible and meaningful to a modern audience.

Mostly however, thanks to the musical direction of Emmanuelle Haïm, Hippolyte et Aricie does indeed show how much more modern a composer Rameau was in relation to his predecessors. The opera, the composer’s first and written late in his career, is perhaps still too mired in the conventions of the French tragédie lyrique, but coming after having published his Treatise on Harmony in 1722 and his New System of Music Theory in 1726 and having established his career as an accomplished composer of music for the harpsichord, technically Rameau’s music is much more advanced, breathing a freshness and sense of modernity into the ensemble arrangements, with the choral sections in particular sparking the work into life. In almost all other aspects however, but mainly in narrative or dramatic terms, Hippolyte et Aricie is a very dry, conventional baroque work that doesn’t hold up quite as well as some of the composer’s other great works, Castor et Pollux, Les Indes Galantes, Les Boreades or Zoroastre.

It might help if you are familiar with the background of the Greek tragedy Phaedra as told by Euripides, Seneca or Racine - certainly most of the audience in Rameau’s time would have been familiar with the mythology - but even then Pellegrin’s libretto puts its own particular spin on the subject, as making Hippolyte and Aricie the focus of the story might suggest. A lot of the reworking was undertaken in order to meet the demands of the lyric stage, and Rameau’s opera complies with all the conventions of the form, from the opening prologue in a pastoral setting where Diana and Cupid issue challenges to settle a dispute over who reigns over the hearts of men, with a love story then at the heart of the work and scenes set for spectacle and variety in storms and journeys to the Underworld, with Gods and mythological figures dropping in at every opportunity to show off the stage machinery.

The production, directed by Ivan Alexandre with set designs by Antoine Fontaine, does its best to replicate a sense of the original spectacle using period-style props, backdrops and stage effects, the Gods descending impressively on clouds, on top of huge deluges of waves and from the mouths of giant mythical sea monsters. It looks terrific, but none of it really does anything for a dramatic style that already feels dated, failing to find a way that makes a modern audience want to care about the figures in this ancient drama that flits from scene to scene without making a great deal of sense. The colour schemes and lighting used don’t help matters, pale green and sepia under subdued lighting make this look dusty, faded and murky.

There are however compensating factors that make this more than worthwhile. First, of course, is Rameau’s music. If it’s not greatly attuned to the emotional undercurrents, it at least has musical variety (enough for ten operas according to Campra) and is full of wonderful harmonies and melodies. In narrative terms it’s a hugely disjointed work, a series of standalone scenes with linking recitative, interrupted even further and with regularity for choruses and ballet sequences at the most inappropriate of times, all to give the original intended audience the variety and contrast they would have expected, but the leaps and lurches at least allow Rameau to vary the rhythm and tempo with that distinct freshness of character. Most impressive are the choruses, which came across quite stunningly as sung by the Choir of the Concert d’Astrée, as well as a trio of voices of the three Fates. Musically, all of this was directed with a great sense of verve and rhythm by Emmanuelle Haïm.

Also very much in favour of the production was the terrific cast assembled here at the Palais Garnier, even if not all of the roles came across equally as well. Topi Lehtipuu and Anne-Catherine Gillet sang the parts of Hippolyte and Aricie well, with beautiful tone, but caught up in the disjointed narrative, their roles never really came to life and they were as dull as the costumes they were dressed in, slipping into the background. They did have a lot of colourful characters and singers to contend with however, such as Sarah Connolly’s dominant Phèdre, Jaël Azzaretti’s sparkling Amour (Cupid) and Stéphane Degout’s brooding Thésée (Theseus).

Lully - Atys

Jean-Baptiste Lully - Atys

Opéra Comique, Paris, 2011

William Christie, Les Arts Florissantes, Jean-Marie Villégier, Bernard Richter, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Emmanuelle di Negri, Nicholas Rivenq, Marc Mouillon, Sophie Daneman, Jaël Azzaretti, Paul Agnew, Cyril Auvity, Bernard Delatré

FRA Musica

In contrast to most of William Christie’s recent productions reviving forgotten gems of early French Baroque opera, this 2011 production of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s 1676 opera Atys for the Opéra Comique in Paris is rather more faithful to the period and tradition of the original work. It may be the case that the works of Lully’s successor Rameau are better suited to a more experimental approach that strives to find a balance between the classicism of the subjects and the modern perspective from which they must inevitably be viewed, but the Les Arts Florissantes’ production of Lully’s Armide directed by Robert Carsen shows that this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. As a revival of one of Christie’s earliest productions, from 1987, what is fascinating about Jean-Marie Villégier’s production (amply documented in the extra features on this Blu-ray disc), is the careful consideration of how to present works that hadn’t been played anywhere for several hundred years in as faithful a way as possible while still making them relevant and meaningful to a new audience. The fact that a wealthy benefactor was so moved by the original production that he paid for the lavish production to be restaged in 2011 is testament to the fact that the producers got something right, and the reason why a greater audience can share in the enjoyment and beauty of this work in the age of High Definition video.

Inevitably, at this early stage in the revival and presentation of such works, the tendency is to aim towards fidelity to the period and the intentions of the work as closely as possible, but not slavishly so. There are good reasons for this, principally the fact that, even with great amounts of research on the part of Villégier - an expert on the theatre of this period - one can only come up with at best an approximation of how it was originally staged based on the scarce accounts and documentation of the opera’s original performances for the Royal Court of Louis XIV. Secondly, one has to take into consideration the expectations of a modern opera audience to some degree, since Atys itself was written and tailored to the expectations of a contemporary audience, and there’s a huge gulf of history and opera now that lies in-between that cannot be ignored. Any attempt to create authentic props, backdrops and stage effects would consequently only be a representation of a dull and dusty museum piece, making it nothing more than a curiosity of how opera would have looked in Baroque times, but Christie and his collaborators evidently believe that Lully’s Atys (like their revivals of other works from this period) has inherent musical and entertainment value that doesn’t need to be tied to a historical tradition.

Villégier’s production manages very well in this respect, aiming for period authenticity in the set and costume designs, capturing a sense of the elaborate extravagance of the work - in musical as well as in production terms - without going overboard and cluttering the stage with unnecessary props and effects. The costumes are actually those of 17th century nobility, not the robes and tunics of classical antiquity in a pastoral setting that would have been more likely employed for this subject, so the intention is clearly to give a semblance of the opera in its time rather than how it would actually have been staged. In the same vein, there is just one all-purpose grand palatial room used for all three acts, based on an historical etching, which gives sufficient room for the large cast of singers, dancers and chorus to play out the comedy, drama and tragedy of the work, conveying everything that is required through the quality of the musical and vocal presentation. The splendour and the sense of the work is thus preserved, without the need for programme footnotes to explain the tradition or make excuses for peculiarities of the production design.

The prelude in praise of the Sun King Louis XIV in this particular opera is an interesting one then, since it serves to set out the whole tone of the opera and the approach taken towards it. In the prelude, Time and the Seasons are put on hold while Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, begs leave of the king himself to delay the arrival of Spring so that the tale can be told of the tragic loves of Atys and the goddess Cybèle. It’s a very formal proposal, though it’s enlivened by comic touches, and this production accordingly plays out in the same fashion - respectfully, but with a lightness of touch. The theme, as is often the case in Baroque opera, is a romantic and a tragic one - of lovers who are kept apart by the whims of gods and kings. And, as is also often the case, gods and kings are not immune either from the forces of love. Here, Atys has just discovered that his secret love for Sangaride is reciprocal, but, alas, the discovery comes too late, for Sangaride is about to be married to the King of the Phrygians, Celenus. The lovers appeal to the goddess Cybèle, who has just appointed Atys her high priest, not knowing that Cybèle is in love with Atys herself. The results in such works when the lovers are not united with their true partners, are inevitably tragic.

While that sounds like a typically Metastasian kind of situation for a long-winded opera seria, but while Atys does indeed run to some three and a quarter hours with lots of tragic bemoaning of the cruel twists of fate and the unfathomable will of the gods, it is not a typical opera in this respect. There are no long repetitive da capo arias and no extravagant coloratura, practically no recitativo secco either, rather Atys almost holds to the model that Gluck would aspire to in his opera reforms. There is little that really stands out as an aria, but rather, a wonderful continuous flow to the singing which purposefully carries the drama and the inner feelings of the characters forward in an admirably concise and direct fashion. There are no longeurs, despite the length, the opera having a wonderful rhythm and structure of its own, the ariosos varying in pace and being broken up with ballets and the most beautiful choral arrangements. Even little divertissements, such as the prelude and the quite stunning Sleep quartet of Act III (”Dormons, dormons tous“) have a dramatic purpose, Le Sommeil arriving to transport Atys to the realm of Cybèle. All of this serves to make Atys dramatically engaging at the same time as being spellbindingly entertaining.

More than just serving these functions as should any good opera, one is equally struck and impressed by Lully’s musical sensibility, which is brought to life beautifully by William Christie and the orchestra and chorus of Les Arts Florissantes. Despite there being some discussion of research into the instruments played and the composition of the orchestra in the accompanying documentary on disc two of this Blu-ray set, it’s not known how much reconstruction, interpretation and improvisation was involved on the part of Christie, but the results are genuinely impressive. It’s not just the interpretation and performance of the music that are successful however, but rather how every element of the production, direction and choreography falls into place with no jarring elements, creating a consistent and fluid dramatic and musical wholeness. It’s within that perfect setting that the performance of Stéphanie d’Oustrac stands out all the more vividly like a sparkling jewel. Her singing is beautiful, perhaps no more exceptional than the other fine performers in the principal roles, but in her acting, in the rush of emotions that flit across her face and rest in her eyes, she brings that much needed humanity that is essential to prevent the opera being just a dry museum curiosity and instead, as Villégier accurately describes it in the documentary feature, “a catharsis of passions” that is recognisable to any viewer of any age or period. It’s all the more impressive that it is a goddess who displays such passions and, likewise, that those all too recognisable human passions can be found in a work that is almost 350 years old.

It’s remarkable too how such an old work can look and sound so fresh on the impeccable High Definition presentation of the Blu-ray release from FRA Musica. The beautifully lit image captures all the beauty in the detail of the costumes and the production design, the direction for television by Francois Roussillon capturing it all wonderfully as ever, allowing the camera to linger on the expressions of the singers at crucial moments. Nothing is missed. The usual PCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 tracks are provided and have a similar crystal clarity with fineness of detail. The surround mix in particular on this release makes great use of the additional spacing and separation of instruments. A two-disc set, disc one contains the entire opera, with disc two given over to an interesting 100-minute documentary reuniting most of the creators involved in the original 1987 production recreated here in 2011. Subtitles are in French, English, German, Spanish and Italian. A very impressive set of a production (like Christie’s stunning Les Indes Galantes) that deserves to be retained for posterity.