Messager - Fortunio (Paris, 2019)

André Messager - Fortunio

Opéra Comique, Paris - 2019

Louis Langrée, Denis Podalydès, Cyrille Dubois, Anne-Catherine Gillet, Franck Leguérinel, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Philippe-Nicholas Martin, Pierre Derhet, Thomas Dear, Aliénor Feix, Luc Bertin-Hugault, Geoffroy Buffière, Sarah Jouffroy, Laurent Podalydès

Naxos - Blu-ray

I don't think that André Messager is going to make a big comeback in popularity outside of France any time soon, but fortunately they look after the legacy of their opera history at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Like some recent revivals of Messager's French contemporaries and teachers, Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré, his 1907 opera Fortunio proves to be a pleasant surprise, even if it remains very much of its time. Which is nonetheless a time that still saw some major works and significant developments in the world of opera.

Messager's contribution to early 20th century music is perhaps more for his fame as the conductor of the world premiere of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, and for his work in the promoting the Wagnerian repertoire in France. His own compositions may not be quite as groundbreaking in the world of opera as those two composers but when considered alongside the likes of Massenet or even Puccini, who was also composing his greatest works around the same period, Messager's operas are very much in the running in terms of melody, drama and intensity of deep romantic feelings.

While he made a significant contribution to the French opera world then in terms of his conducting and in his appointment as director of the Paris Opera, it doesn't appear that Messager had any great ambitions to progress the world of opera through his own compositions. His was the world of the light comic operetta, but in Fortunio he brings a deceptive lightness of touch to the more through-composed form of the opera-lyrique, with a traditional subject based on Alfred de Musset's 1835 comedy 'Le Chandelier', a work that was guaranteed to delight French audiences of the period.

Directed by Denis Podalydès, the Opéra Comique production very much aligned to a period style and tradition that will bring the best out of the work. In subject and treatment it often reminded me of elements Massenet's Manon and Werther. Fortunio is a naive country boy who has fallen hopelessly in love with Jacqueline, the coquettish wife of his employer, the notary Maître André. She uses his innocent devotion as a way to distract her husband from a much more serious affair that she is carrying on with her lover, the womanising Captain Clavaroche. Even though he becomes aware that he is being misused, Fortunio only grows even more devoted in the hope that his desires and faithfulness might be rewarded, despairing at the same time that he is surely unworthy of such love, a love so consuming that he could die of it or die for it.

Messager's skill is that he pours these sentiments into the most beautiful heartfelt arias, the music soaring in accompaniments as these feelings grow in intensity. Like Werther, if you have singers that can deliver on that the work itself will soar, and that's very much the case here. Cyrille Dubois is wonderful as Fortunio with a gorgeous lyrical range that brings the drama and the opera fully to life. Anne-Catherine Gillet's Jacqueline is also excellent in a tricky role that challenges ones sympathy with her coquettishness being indulged, a plaything for all three men, but there are indications that she doubts her own intentions and feelings, and Gillet captures that ambiguity and uncertainty well. Maître André and Clavaroche are much more caricatures, the foolish cuckolded husband and the womaniser, and both played to the hilt, as they should be in the context by Franck Leguérinel and Jean-Sébastien Bou.

The Opéra Comique of Paris are unparalleled at putting on French light opera of this period and the production here is outstanding, well up to their usual high standards. The musical direction by Louis Langrée is superb, putting a spring in the music, which is full of verve and emotion, and even shows important influences with some Debussy-like impressionistic and atmospheric touches. Eric Ruf's set designs are traditional and period with no ironic subtexts or winks to the audience. It's played for what it is. Although Messager is not a composer I'm at all familiar with, this production and performance here makes a strong case for this opera being worthy of sitting alongside more famous works in the repertoire.

The Blu-ray edition of Fortunio from Naxos is very nice. The High Definition image is clear with a touch of warmth and softness that captures the qualities of the theatrical lighting. The music is likewise warm and detailed, soaring in both Hi-Res LPCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio surround mixes. There are no extra features on the disc, but there's a full tracklist, commentary on the work and a synopsis in the enclosed booklet. The BD50 is all-region, with subtitles in French, English, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Opéra Comique

Rossini - Le Comte Ory (Paris, 2017)

Gioachino Rossini - Le Comte Ory

L'Opéra Comique, Paris - 2017

Louis Langrée, Denis Podalydès, Philippe Talbot, Julie Fuchs, Gaëlle Arquez, Éve-Maud Hubeaux, Patrick Bolleire, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Jodie Devos, Laurent Podalydès, Léo Reynaud

Culturebox - 29th December 2017

There's a general consensus that Rossini's final opera Guillaume Tell is the pinnacle of the composer's relatively short but prolific period as an opera composer (around 40 operas in just 20 years), but there are other lighter and more playful pieces in Rossini's late French works that are equally as accomplished as William Tell. True there may arguably be greater masterpieces among the earlier Italian works like Mosè in Egitto and - who am I to dispute it? - the perennial charm of Il Barbiere di Siviglia - but leaving aside the re-works of Le siege de Corinthe and Moise et Pharaon, the operas composed for a French audience like Il viaggio a Reims and Le comte Ory are remarkable confections that combine a lightness of touch and crowd-pleasing numbers with extraordinarily beautiful and inventive melodic arrangements.

Le comte Ory might not have much of a plot to speak of, but the musical writing is equally as impressive and sophisticated in its expression and arrangements as the work that preceded it, Il viaggio a Reims, an opera that was written for the one-off occasion of the coronation of Charles X in 1825. Believing music too good to be lost (as it would actually be for 150 years or so), Rossini reused much of it for the composition of Le comte Ory. The earlier work had more of a variety show numbers feel to it (Rossini ahead of the game there, much as he was in his development of grand opéra and bel canto, or unforgivable depending on your viewpoint, although he can hardly be blamed for the excesses or banality of others in those fields), so Rossini had to be a little creative in how he reworked the musical material to fit a dramatic plot for Le comte Ory.

You can hardly call the plot sophisticated, as the first half of the opera involves a nobleman, the Count Ory, who disguises himself as a wise hermit so that he can seduce the credulous wives of all the men who have left them alone and unloved and gone off to fight in the Crusades. In the second half, the licentious young Comte Ory puts into play a suggestion that his page Isolier has concocted as a way that might get himself close to the Countess Adèle, sister of the lord of Formoutiers, who he is in love with. Using the page's idea for himself, Ory disguises himself and his men as nuns on a pilgrimage so that they can gain access to the otherwise inaccessible womanly delights that are locked away in the Countess's castle, fearful of the storm outside and looking for comfort.

As a way of providing a variety of colourful scenes for the composer to apply his melodic and effervescent music to however, Le comte Ory gets the job done. And with considerable style and aplomb. It's almost casually brilliant in making it all seem effortlessly light and entertaining. In fact, the work is filled with dramatic and comedic expression, allowing opportunities for individual virtuosity that impress as much as they amuse. The extravagant coloratura and high notes are more often used for comic emphasis and expression of the whirlwind of emotions that are stirred up rather than just being thrown in for the sake of showing-off. Boosted by a capella harmonised ensembles and invigorating choruses, the work transmits that sense of joyful abandon to the audience in the most direct and engaging way that any opera should.

The perceived silliness of the plot however often - in the relatively rare occasions when it is performed - leads modern directors to add a distancing effect (The Met, Pesaro) that actually has the effect of diluting the wholly intentional silliness and comedy of the situation. Why can't they just play the comedy 'straight', so to speak? Well that's what Denis Podalydès does in this wonderfully entertaining production at the Opera Comique (the Paris opera house that knows the real value of light French comic opera) with the result that the work just sparkles with the natural verve and brilliance of its composition. Not to mention that it has a superb cast capable of bringing out all those inherent qualities in the work.

Podalydès doesn't need any clever device or framing structure to make this confection any sweeter. The comedy is in the situation itself and the director just ensures that the performers play them up to the hilt and for all they are worth. Eric Ruf's set for Act I is no more than a country church and Ory is disguised more as an eccentric priest than a hermit, but I guess you might think that the distinction is negligible as far as giving people false hopes in mystical advice to a gullible congregation while serving one's own interests. It functions dramatically, other than the intentional thinness of the count's disguise of course. Act II's set places a group of anxious women huddling from the storm in a rather austere castle interior that protects their virtue from the likes of Count Ory, where rather than a bed, the Countess seems to sleep on a stone tomb.

While the setting heightens the contrasts between the repressed women and libidinous behaviour of Ory and his men, the humour in Act II is mostly derived from men, some of them with beards, all disguised as nuns forgetting to act demurely and in a holy way and instead hiking their skirts up and singing boisterous drinking songs. And if that's not funny, I don't know what is. Well, apart from some ménage-a-trois bedroom farce antics of course and Podalydès direction ensures that it is played entirely for as many laughs as it's possible to get out of the situation. In a nice little twist he also makes the Countess not quite as credulous and submissive as you might think, entering fully into the bed-hopping shenanigans which, with Isolier in a trouser role, already has some gender-ambiguous suggestiveness.

If there's a reason why Le comte Ory is actually considerably funnier in performance than it might sound on paper it's got a lot to do with Rossini's music, and it's given a vigorous outing here by Louis Langrée. Sophistication and precision aren't always a prerequisite for a Rossini musical performance, when sometimes what it needs more is fervour and passion, but Langrée's musical direction enjoys the best of both worlds. There's detail in the colouring of the instrumentation as well as precision, pace and passion in the rhythm and rich melodic flavours of the scenes and the arias. The singing, which is extraordinarily challenging for such a light comic piece, is handled with aplomb and character by Philippe Talbot's Comte Ory, who has a lovely lyrical timbre that carries even to the high notes. Julie Fuchs is a sparkling countess, putting her high notes to good use as exclamations and as a release of repressed emotions. The singing and performances are a joy from all the cast, with Gaëlle Arquez an impressive Isolier and Éve-Maud Hubeaux an irrepressible Dame Ragonde.

Links: L'Opéra Comique, Culturebox

Mozart - Così fan tutte (Aix-en-Provence, 2016)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Così fan tutte

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2016

Louis Langrée, Christophe Honoré, Lenneke Ruiten, Kate Lindsey, Sandrine Piau, Joel Prieto, Nahuel di Pierro, Rod Gilfry

ARTE Concert - 8th July 2016

Categorised as an opera buffa and based on a rather frivolous concept, there is unquestionably a darker side to the morals and attitudes expressed Mozart's Così fan tutte and you don't necessarily need to view from an 'enlightened' modern perspective to see it that way. It's true that most recent productions have tended to put the emphasis on the twisted nature of the game play and the sexual politics of Lorenzo da Ponte's libretto, but few go as far as Christophe Honoré in this new production for the 2016 Aix-en-Provence festival.

Surprisingly a very popular work with film directors at Aix (Patrice Chereau and Abbas Kiarostami have both done productions of this opera for the festival in the past), the dark ambiguities of Così fan tutte and its 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' machinations have also been explored by Michael Haneke for the Teatro Real in Madrid. French filmmaker Christophe Honoré's take on the subject is a distinctive one, where the setting of Ethiopia in 1930 under the control of Mussolini and the actions of the Gugliemo and Ferrando as Fascist soldiers immediately suggests a turn not only towards a dark treatment but a particularly unpleasant one.

Even as the overture is played out, we see Gugliemo and Ferrando sexually harass and abuse the native Ethiopian women. It's a matter of power and conquest and Honoré clearly intends to draw a parallel between the actions and attitudes of racist soldiers with men's attitudes towards women as they are viewed in Così fan tutte. The men's friend Don Alfonso - who might be an official from the administrative or diplomatic corps in the country - tells them not to be fooled by airs of sophistication and pretence of purity in the white women from their own race. He's convinced that at heart, their own girlfriends, the sisters Flordiligi and Dorabella, are no better than the black native women that they casually frequent and assault.

Well, to all appearances they are not regarded or treated much differently, although both men of course would deny it. They certainly don't accept Don Alfonso's proposition that the women would ever let themselves be seduced by inferior black men and are prepared to bet on it. Pretending to be called off to the front with the army, Gugliemo and Ferrando return disguised as black foreigners to put Flordiligi and Dorabella to the test. Their maid Despina, who is in on the game and has a thing for the native men herself, tells the women that they are well off without their lovers, who are probably unfaithful to them with the native women (and how!), so they should take advantage of the two striking dark-skinned gentlemen who have just appeared declaring undying love for them.

As much of a false equivalence as it might seem to compare the conquest and rape of the native population of an African colony with the power that men exercise over women, and do it moreover in the context of a comic opera by Mozart, this is indeed the crux of the director's argument in relation to the work. Does it stand up to scrutiny? Well, it sounds like a tough sell, but it's no harder to swallow than Mozart and Da Ponte's play on male and female relationships, and in practice it proves to be much more convincing than the awkward contrivances of the comic plot. If you've ever felt any uneasiness at the attitudes expressed in Così fan tutte, well, this production only amplifies that feeling. Surprisingly however, not only is Mozart and Da Ponte's work able to sustain this extreme interpretation, but it actually thrives with a bit of added realism.

Christophe Honoré ensures that every element of the production is geared towards making it real and keeping it in touch with the underlying premise of the opera. Alban Ho Van's sets depicting the exterior and interior of an army garrison in an Ethiopian town are strikingly realistic, enhanced by the fine use of lighting. Directed for the screen it even looks cinematic with the camera angles used and a widescreen CinemaScope presentation. The setting is only as good and as credible as the action that takes place within it and Honoré's direction is outstanding. The singing isn't perhaps as virtuosic as you might expect, sounding slightly underpowered in pretty much every role, but the characterisation and acting performances are thoroughly convincing, and even a little troubling.

Honoré is a great film director, and his experience in working with actors shows and really pays off as far as the ambitions of this production are concerned. With an earthy feel to the period instruments of the Freiburger Barockorchester under the direction of Louis Langrée and committed singing performances, this is a Così full of heat, passion and wild eroticism and certainly the most convincing production I have ever seen for this particular Mozart opera. As horrendous and abusive as the treatment often is, the director nevertheless brings much more to Così fan tutte than just a subversive little twist that sets out to shock. Rather it supports and emphasises the importance of Mozart and Da Ponte's themes by pushing them to their limits and seeing how well they stand up.

Surprisingly, for all Così fan tutte's reputation as a comedy, it copes well with the added weight of Christophe Honoré's direction and it even succeeds in revealing other dimensions. It shows the depth of passion and a revelling in the pleasures of the flesh that Mozart and Da Ponte could only suggest, but it also shows the abuse that be inflicted when these forces are misused or misplaced, and that a happy ending is not guaranteed. The important message it has for us however is that we are all free to love whoever we choose and that we are all equally empowered by love. Men and women, black or white, we're all the same - Così fan tutti.

Links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, ARTE Concert