Jean-Philippe Rameau - Dardanus
L'Opéra de Bordeaux, 2015
Raphaël Pichon, Michel Fau, Karina Gauvin, Gaëlle Arquez, Reinoud van Mechelen, Florian Sempey, Nahuel di Pierro, Katherine Watson, Etienne Bazola, Virgile Ancely, Guillaume Gutiérrez
Culturebox - 22 April 2015
You could criticise Jean-Philippe Rameau's Dardanus - and indeed most of the composer's tragédie-lyriques - as being a little too stiff, formal and serious, the work straight-jacketed by precise rules and conventions that Rameau and his predecessor Lully before him helped establish. You could however admire Dardanus for the very same reasons, for its ability to fit such beautiful music, song and dance into a very rigid format, making it a wonderfully entertaining spectacle.
And there's the key to how you make Dardanus, composed in 1739 and scarcely heard of again until the present day, work today for a modern audience. It's by not playing it with stiff, rigid formality, but finding a natural warmth in the beauty of the composition, the structure and the melody. It's also about presenting the work with some respect for its intention to entertain, with plenty of colour and spectacle.
Bordeaux have a good recent history with Rameau. Their modernisation of Les Indes Galantes last year (for the 250th anniversary of the death of Rameau) was an absolute marvel, updating the work certainly way beyond its original settings but completely respecting the intentions and the spirit of the opéra-ballet with all its wonderful verve, energy and inventiveness. A classical drama in the tragédie-lyrique vein, Dardanus is a different prospect but, Michel Fau's direction for the Bordeaux stage, in a co-production with Versailles, never forgets the primary purpose and delivers a colourful drama that is matched by the warmth of Raphaël Pichon's conducting of his Pygmalion ensemble.
As it adheres very much to a classic narrative, the primary purpose of Dardanus is not, clearly, to present any kind of credible or coherent drama, but to present a drama in music. The plot involves a ruler, King Teucer, who has plans for his daughter Princess Iphise's marriage to King Anténor. Iphise doesn't want to marry Anténor, but is troubled that her affections seem to be swaying her towards tender feelings for Teucer's enemy Dardanus. Dardanus, Anténor and Iphise all venture into the magic kingdom of Isménor, where the true intentions of each are brought into the open and made known to each other, causing a lot of confusion and trouble for all.
Opening with the obligatory Prologue featuring Vénus and Amour ('Triomphe, tendre amour"), Dardanus then is five acts of fairly standard plotting with sentiments of forbidden love and conflict leading to a rather contrived conclusion. For some not entirely convincing reason, other than perhaps to provide the opera with a necessary bit of merveilleux stage spectacle at the necessary point, Neptune sends a sea monster to attack Teucer. Dardanus saves the King's champion Anténor from bring devoured by the sea monster, and thereby wins the right to marry Iphise. Rameau pads all this out with lots of dancing and a structure that seems to run on an aria-ballet-chorus-ballet-recitative-ballet-aria loop. Dardanus has the potential to be very dry indeed with all these interruptions to the dramatic flow.
Rameau's music however is much too good to let it be drowned in a dull academic presentation. There is a sense of establishing beauty and order on the world in the music itself - learning to love instead of hate - and Raphaël Pichon finds the beautiful warmth in Rameau's writing that underlines such sentiments, as much in the interplay of the instruments as in their individual qualities. There are moments of sheer wonder here, even in those little side events, such as in the little pastorale 'Paix favorable, paix adorable' which takes the form of a chorus, turning into a ballet and then into a duet which has all the joyous quality of a Handel oratorio.
Michel Fau's direction and Emmanuel Charles' set designs don't feel the need to update all this to a modern setting, but recognise that Dardanus can work on its own terms if it holds true to this original purpose and intent. That doesn't mean that they settle for trying to recreate baroque theatre effects, but find instead a new, modern and colourful way using projections as well as traditional costumes and stage effects to achieve the same impact. It never quite resorts to kitsch or parody - other than where the occasion really leaves no alternative - but finds its own dazzling vision for the work. A good example of this is in how they approach the battle of the sea monster, which is done in a hugely entertaining fashion without the need to create any cardboard sea monster special effects. All the ballets are included, sometimes inventively other times just bringing the dancers onto the stage where indicated and letting them do their piece.
There's no room for extravagant arias in French tragédie-lyrique, and reportedly there wasn't any particular need for clarity of diction, but the libretto is beautifully articulated here by some beautiful and appropriately pitched voices. Florian Sempey carried the honours as Anténor, his lyrical baritone carrying the kind of warmth that was complementary to the production. In his actions as well as his voice, there was a genuine sensitivity that made Anténor a little more sympathetic and not just a caricature villain,. He's clearly devastated that Iphise doesn't love him, valiantly entering into battle with the sea monster to prove his worth. Sempey's voice holds firm and lyrical throughout.
Gaëlle Arquez complements him well as Iphise, her voice bright, her emotional conflicts expressed purposefully, never faltering. The figure of Dardanus is relatively bland by comparison, and characterised as such by Reinoud van Mechelen's light but sweet tenor. Although limited to only a few scenes, Karina Gauvin is the kind of singer you want to impress when Vénus makes an appearance, and she fulfils that role well, but it's Katherine Watson taking up the bit-part roles of Amore, a Shepherdess, Bellone and a Dream, who gets to feature in some of Rameau's most beautiful little incidental arrangements, and she makes a fine impression here.
Links: Culturebox
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito
Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, 2014
Jérémie Rhorer, Denis Podalydès, Kurt Steit, Karina Gauvin, Julie Fuchs, Kate Lindsey, Julie Boulianne, Robert Gleadow
ARTE Concert - 18 December 2014
There are a few unusual features introduced by actor and director Denis Podalydès into this production of La Clemenza di Tito at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris. One is that you actually get to see and hear Berenice, the Queen rejected by Titus at the start of the opera. The second feature used by Podalydès is the setting of the work in France in the late 1930s-1940s during the time of the Occupation. It would seem doubtful that either of these elements have anything to add to Mozart's final opera or even whether Mozart's opera can help illuminate a significant period in modern French history, but there is unquestionably a vibrancy and an edge to this production that we rarely see in Mozart's late opera seria.
The inclusion of Berenice, the opening scene featuring an actress performing a scene from Racine's drama, is a bit of an actorly theatrical indulgence, but it's not entirely without merit. Berenice has an important part to play in what unfolds during the reign of Titus during this period as it is detailed in Metastasio's libretto, so it does serve some purpose to put a face to the name. The setting during the Occupation is never made explicit, but the period costumes and setting in the presidential suites of a large hotel do suggest that the rule of Titus is being compared to the running of the Vichy government during the war, otherwise why set it there at all?
I'm not sure that's a valid or helpful analogy to establish the nature of Titus' predicaments in La Clemenza di Tito - though it does provide some amusing ideas imagining Sextus as a Resistance fighter operating from within the regime. What it undoubtedly brings to the work however is a very distinct character, style and setting that has some concrete reality, and not the generic antiquity designs or the abstract symbols of power that usually characterise productions of this work. It looks stunning, but more than that, it enlivens and gives character to a difficult opera seria work where most of the action takes place off-stage, with the protagonists usually agonising over developments in long da capo arias.
In this Théâtre des Champs Elysées production, Podalydès rarely lets a character stand alone on the stage and sing these arias out to the audience. He fills the rooms of this elegant, wood-panelled apartment suite with government officials and administrators. All of them are smartly dressed in 1940s' suits designed by Christian Lacroix (the female characters perhaps not quite so elegantly fitted). There's always the bustle of people coming and going, giving a sense of real political activity going on, of events spiralling out of control behind the scenes. More than the inclusion of Berenice or the Occupation setting, what Podalydès really brings to La Clemenza di Tito is a sense of drama.
For a usually static opera seria, that's a useful attribute to have, and in the end it's the conviction of the acting and singing performances that really carry the inner drive of the work. The opening monologue prepares you for a completely theatrical experience (or, as it is filmed for the live broadcast - in widescreen - a near-cinematic experience) that simmers with tension and aching passions. La Clemenza di Tito rarely feels as dramatic as this, but it's through no fault of the work itself. It's all there in the music if the director is willing and imaginative enough to interpret it, and Podalydès does it very well indeed in collaboration with Jérémie Rhorer.
That suits Kurt Streit, who in a radio interview for the France Musique radio broadcast of this production, refers to himself as an actor first and a singer after that. In a production like this he is in his element, but he also has the right kind of voice for Titus. He's not as strong this time, but that light lyrical timbre is gorgeous. The right voices are also there in Julie Fuchs' sweet, delicate Servilia, Julie Boulianne's firm of purpose Annius and Robert Gleadow's grave Publius. Mostly however, it's Karina Gauvin who takes the acting credits as Vitellia, and she's powerful in the singing stakes as well. There's no caricature or stock opera seria characterisation here, Gauvin's Vitellia coming across genuinely like a woman scorned and vengeful, completely dominating the stage whenever she's on it.
Equally impressive is Kate Lindsey's Sextus, making this one formidable power couple! It's a committed and a nuanced performance, carrying real emotion and feeling. Combining impeccable technique and a flowing legato with real character insight, Lindsey transforms 'Deh per questo istante solo' into something truly remarkable, running through all the conflict of Sesto's position, and an almost ecstatic acceptance or controlled abandonment to the unenviable hand that fate has dealt him, a traitor at the mercy of a powerful ruler.
This ruler, Titus however is not like other rulers, he has 'un altro cor'. This production also has another heart, and it's that of Mozart, the qualities of each of the characters embodied in the music he has written for them. The musical performance of the work is not as showy as it can be, Jérémie Rhorer's conducting of the reduced period instrumentation of Le Cercle de l’Harmonie ensemble, restrained, simple and elegant, but it suits the nature of the opera seria, it supports the dramatic situation and it allows the singers the freedom to express the nature of the characters themselves. Whether the curiosities of the staging helped this or not, Denis Podalydès' production for the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris got to the the heart of La Clemenza di Tito.
Links: ARTE Concert, Théâtre des Champs Elysées
