No tourists - John Eliot Gardiner Chabrier Debussy BRSO

Sir John Eliot Gardiner with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks at the notorious  Gasteig in Munich last week. Gardiner isn't getting any younger, but he's greatly loved. Every opportunity to hear him live is worth cherishing. This time he conducted Emmanuel Chabrier and Claude Debussy.  A delightful programme, elegantly constructed.  Playful, even, sparked with Gardiner's characteristic wit.  Setting the scene,  the concert began with Chabrier's Overture to Gewendoline,  (1886), much better known than the opera itself. Gwendoline is a fantasy on early medieval Britain, set in an Anglo-Saxon village being raided by Danes. The opera wasn't a huge success, neither comic nor grand enough for Parisian taste, yet not over the top enough for Wagnerian audiences.  Nonetheless, it probably deserves revival these days, when the ideal of unified Europe is under threat. Much better Chabrier's civilized if slightly dotty romance than the rumblings of nationalist extremism.  Perhaps in those sweeping strings, we can imagine the swelling waves of the North Sea, and winds blowing the Vikings ashore. Mock medievalism in glory: neither mayhem nor pillage on the horion.The winds suggest Tristan und Isolde, and the finale explodes, trumpets and trombones ablaze, and giant crashing percussion. True MGM richness!

Rather more elegant, Chabrier's Suite Pastorale (1888) orchestrating four of the composer's 10 Pièces pittoresques (1881)   Gardiner's lightness of touch was ideal : these pieces charm because they're light and aphoristic.  Then the Fête polonaise from Chabrier's opera Le roi malgré lui. (1887).   It's not kitsch  "Polish", though the last movement is part waltz and part polka, almost a parody of Vienna and the Johann Strausses.  But it's echt Chabrier.  Gardiner and the BRSO executed the piece stylishly,  the scherzo-valse executed with vivacious flair. Last year, Chabrier's L'étoile was staged at the Royal Opera House. Chabrier's idiom doesn't fit into neat operatic categories. Its warm hearted, unpretentious cheerfulness expresses itself in a taste for absurd whimsy. The key to understanding L'étoile was, I think, understanding his orchestral music, and his ironic style.  So if the opera didn't go down well with London audiences that says as much about them as it does about Chabrier.  Thus, Chabrier's "greatest hit" España (1883). A delicious performance, like a tourist's memory of an ideal holiday in Spain. The strings whirr like strumming "guitars" and flamenco rhythms add spice.  And, like a tourist fantasy, it doesn't last.  In this case, six minutes!

Chabrier's "travelogues" complemented Debussy's Images, in the sense that the most famous section, Ibérica, has a Spanish context. Gardiner began, though, with the Rondes du Printemps.  Rounds: hence the cyclic feel of the piece, reminiscent of the "waves" in La Mer, written at roughly the same period, the folk melodies flowing like undertow.  Gardiner followed this  with Gigues  to reinforce the idea of abstract form as opposed to pictorial colour.  True, Ibérica incorporates features that might evoke Spanish flavour, but it is also a "round" in itself, being made up of three inner sections, the outer two inspired by abstract form.The core, Les parfums de la Nuit is mysterious. Its beauty needs no ostensible title.   Listen to the rebroadcast of this concert here on BR Klassik.

Chabrier L'étoile ROH - a French Fledermaus ?

Emmanuel Chabrier's L'étoile at the Royal Opera House: is it a French Die Fledermaus? Johan Strauus's operetta was a sensation in 1874, so perhaps it's not a coincidence that the two works have much in common.  Both predicate on mistaken identities, on people trying to be what they are not. Just as champagne features in Die Fledermaus, Chartreuse figures in L'étoile. Alcohol  releases inhibitions, anything can happen when you're drunk.

But from thereon the operas diverge.  Die Fledermaus has a very dark subtext indeed: the sparkling fizz hides venom.  Read more about what I've written about it here and here, witha link to a brilliant Nazi era film on the theme. Perhaps  L'étoile has a dark side, but its surface shines - like a star - dazzling all before it.  Madcap zaniness is its raison d'être. Rather than read too much into it, sit back and enjoy.  

Lots of people in tonight's audience were guffawing so much they looked like their sides would split. No doubt it could be done as broad-brush slaptick, but I think I prefer director Mariame Clément's approach, which fits much better with Chabrier's music,  and its quintessental charm.  It also fits in with his piano and orchestral music. While Chabrier adored Wagner, the composers' temperaments were radically different. Wagner fulminates, Chabrier exudes good humour. Chabrier's light, brittle style reminds me of Poulenc, of Les mamelles de Tirésias and of the quirkier song cycles.  I hate using national labels, but there's something very French and down to earth in L'étoile, despite the craziness.   One doesn't lose proportion even when one's nuts. .

Ouf's kingdom exists entirely in the imagination.  Ouf, (Christophe Mortagne) decides that Siroco (Simon Bailey) will die right after him, and they are convinced that they'll both die if something happens to Lazuli (Kate Lindsey).  Superstition reigns, not reason or logic.  One moment Lazuli faces death, the next he's treated like royalty. Princess Laoula ( Hélène Guilmette) descends, literally, from above in a balloon. "Believe a man can fly" as they say in Superman comics.  Laoula and her parents Hérisson de Porc-Epic (what a name - François Piolino and Julie Boulianne) disguise themselves as tradesmen but what they're really out to buy is Ouf.  Ouf might be fantasy Persian, but becomes a Saudi Prince, and an Ottoman in a harem with hordes of Turks in white helmets as chorus.  Exotic Orientalism to wow the audience, event clad odalisques and a pool from which hot air rises (like the balloon, like the plot ). Lazuli tries to escape in a boat, seen here as a flat painted like a small cruiser complete with "waves".  He's lost at sea, brilliantly depicted by having the chorus, lit in the colours of the sea, toss a small boat in their arms. Of course it's not realistic! Realism would be contrary to everything L'étoile stands for. Two English-speaking characters add another dimension, and a monk clad in a white habit operates silently in nearly every scene. He's a Carthusian. Carthusians make Chartreuse. And thus the second act glows in eerie Chatreuse-y green, a huge bottle centre stage from which singers emerge and retreat.  Beer goggles, only posher.

Kate Lindsey's performance stole the show. She's the star of L'étoile, though singing all round was good, especially the ROH chorus, who revelled in the robust gusto of their parts,.  Although the ROH PR machine seems to be building something up for Mark Elder, the conducting was disappointingly unidiomatic. Musically, L'étoile is a series of numbers rather than anything coherent, so there really isn't any need to sound too refined.  More punchiness and pugnacious kick, please. The staging, designed by Julia Hansen, replicates stage design in Chabrier's time, with flats painted in cartoon like pastels, pushed in and out on panels.  Audiences then knew that theatre was the art of illusion.  "Realism" is a curse beaten into modern audiences who watch too much TV.  Claire Seymour will be writing a proper review in Opera Today. I had a lovely time - gosh it's fun not to have to think too hard for a change!