Glyndebourne magic at home - Ravel L'enfant et les sortilèges

L'enfant et les sortilèges - Teapot (François Piolino) Child (Khatouna Gadelia) Chinese Cup (Elodie Méchain) Credit Simon Annand

 Glyndebourne at home, minus the garden. Champagne and strawberries optional. But a glorious chance to experience once more the magic of Ravel L'enfant et les sortilèges, in the Laurent Pelly production.  In L'enfant et les sortilèges, the world is seen through the eyes of a child, still full of wonder, too young to be locked into rigid assumptions : innocent, yet still  aware that there might be darker forces lurking just beyond.  This isn't an opera that can be approached literally, with the judgementalism that some adults might prefer.   Pelly, however, captures its elusive delicacy, where magical thinking co-exists with an awareness that harsh reality will eventually intrude, even on the pure in spirit.  "L'enfant et les sortilèges" said Pelly, "lasts about 45 minutes, but has the depth of an opera of three or four hours".This production's timeless, endlessly refreshing. What a joy it is to experience its freedom again via Glyndebourne streaming, especially in these times when it seems that the world seems bent on self destruction.

The combination of this L'enfant et les sortilèges, from 2012, with Pelly's much earlier L'heure espagnole underlines the freshness of Pelly's conception.  In  L'heure espagnole the adult figures are cynical, as inhuman and as inhumane as the clocks Torquemada surrounds himself with. Machines can be controlled to suit. Torquemada's a classic case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where process means more than goal, the need to regulate a mask for existential anxiety.  Concepción thinks she can escape by playing men off against each other, but she, too, is operating on clockwork. Everyone in  L'heure espagnole is trapped in an infernal machine they don't even recognise : no-one's happy, or innocent.

The 2012 Glyndebourne cast was brilliant - Stéphanie d'Oustrac and Kathleen Kim, for starters ! Altogether unforgettable !  Please see my original review from the premiere  and also my interview with Laurent Pelly.