Painterly Charpentier Histoires sacrées : London Festival of the Baroque

photo: Philippe Delval

Marc-Antoine Charpentier Histoires sacrées with Ensemble Correspondances, conducted by Sébastien Daucé,  at St John's Smith Square, part of the London Festival of the Baroque 2018.  This striking staging, by Vincent Huguet, brought out its austere glory: every bit a treasure of the Grand Siècle, though this grandeur was dedicated not to Sun God but to God.  Religion as theatre : and why not ?  Like the architecture and ornamentation in baroque churches,  devotional art served faith.  Although St John's Smith Square was built in the less florid Northern Baroque style,  Huguet's production transformed it, so it glowed.  It felt as if we had stepped into a painting by Caravaggio or Velázquez.
Charpentier's Histoires sacrées has its roots both in sacred oratorio and in the mystery plays of the Middle Ages. Charpentier's audiences were well versed in biblical and liturgical texts, so they could appreciate these "stories" told with sophistication.  At the heart of this programme were three histoires - Judith ou Béthulie libérée H.391, Madeleine en larmes H.343 and Cécile Vierge et Martyre H.397, framed by Ô Sacrement de Piété H.274 as prelude, Au parfum de tes onguents H.510 as interlude, and Sous l’abri de ta miséricorde H.28 as postlude. This formal structure connects the three central characters, each of them a strong woman : Judith  kills the Assyrian Holofernes who persecutes the Hebrews,  Magdalena sings of her love for Christ and St Cecilia is martyred because she will not renounce her faith.  Their stories are told through dramatic recitative, interspersed with choral and instrumental commentary and spoken narrative.  While Judith's story is the most developed, with many sections and variations, the others have individual character.  Magdalena's relatively short song is introduced by the vocal interlude, which mentions "scented oils", thus enhancing, figuratively, her odour of sanctity.  The section about St Cecilia is bright and defiant, like the flames which devour the saint’s body, but not her soul. Towards the conclusion, the harpsichord, breaking from continuo, sings in joyous cadenza.  
Although the text was in Latin, the stories themselves aren't hard to follow, and the work as a whole is propelled by vibrant musical logic, flowing freely from superb performances by the whole Ensemble Correspondances team.  Modern performances of Charpentier's Histoires sacrées were pioneered some years ago by Gérard Lesni and Il Seminario Musicale but there is still much more in this rich vein to be discovered.  Sébastien Daucé and Ensemble Correspondances present these three histoires with flair, enhanced immeasurably by Vincent Huguet's production. Huguet, who worked with Patrice Chéreau, understands the innate human drama in these narratives, though they may be expressed in stylized form.  Large objects that resemble rockfaces, such as we see in 17th century depictions of biblical scenes, including symbolic olive trees.  The idea that painting, or art, should be "realistic" is actually quite recent, and didn't apply in Charpentier's time.  The simplicity of the sets also means that they can be moved quickly and quietly, without interrupting the flow of  performance.  Colours are added by lighting effects.  Thoughtfully, the designers made use of the configuration of the building itself,  using one of the high windows behind the stage to let light shine in "from above" as so often happens in devotional painting.  As daylight faded to night, nature itself became part of the narrative.  The singer's movements also reflected those in religious painting - hands raised and pointed, directing attention away from the singers as themselves to the stories being told.  Altogether a remarkable experience.  How fortunate we were that  Sébastien Daucé  has brought top quality, cutting edge performance practice to London.  
Please also see:

Le concert royale de la nuit : Ensemble Correspondances, London Baroque Festival
Ensemble Correspondances Perpetual Night - Early English Baroque 

 Le Poeme Harmonique - Lalande Motets - Majesté

Why we ALL Need to save St John's Smith Square 

Rameau Motets Prom William Christie Les Arts Florissants

Best of the season so far! William Christie and Les Arts Florissants  performed Rameau Grand Motets at late night Prom 17. Perfection, as one would expect from arguably the finest Rameau interpreters in the business, and that's saying a lot, given the exceptionally high quality of French baroque performance in the last 40 years. Even more significantly, this perfection was mixed with joy and humour. This was an  hommage to Rameau, whose 250th anniversary we celebrate, But for us in the audience, it was also an hommage to William Christie, who founded Les Arts Florissants in 1979. Christie and the generations of artists he has inspired  blend new scholarly research with musical intelligence.

In his lifetime, Rameau was something of a radical. Christie and modern baroque specialists present  Rameau as vibrant as it might have been when the music was still fresh.  Deus noster refugium (1713) (God is our refuge) begins in relatively conventional mode, suitable for decorous church performance. Then a wilder. almost dance-like mood takes over, ushered in by "footsteps"in the vocal line, where each syllable is deliberately defined. The voices sing with firm conviction, while the forces around them are in tumult. With a little imagination, we can hear, as Lindsay Kemp describes in his programme notes, "'mountains' cast into the sea (bursts of tremolos and rushing scales  in the strings, stoically resisted  by firmly regular crotchets  in the three solo voices; swelling waters (smooth but restless choral writing over forward-driving strings); and finally  streams that 'filled the city of God with joy' a gigue-like aria for soprano with solo violin".

Quam dilecta tabernacula (1713-15?) (How lovely is thy dwelling place) allows Rameau to write elaboate fugal patterns. Rameau, the master of technical form, also manages to evoke the beauty of the outdoors. The piece begins with very high soprano, accompanied by delicate winds : pastoral, sensual and mysteriously unearthly. The choruses introduce a livelier mood, which might suggest fecundity and vigorous growth. The soprano solo is balanced by a tenor solo, then later by baritone. Elegant design, reminiscent of baroque gardens, laid out in tight formation. When the soloists sing in ensemble, and later with full chorus, the voices entwine gracefully.

The version of In convertendo Dominus (Psalm 126, When the Lord turned again the Captivity of Zion)  only now exists in a revision made for Holy Week in 1751. The piece begins with a wonderful part for very high tenor, presaging the passion later French opera would have for the voice type. Do we owe Enée and  Robert le Diable to Rameau?  Reinoud Van Mechelen's voice rang nicely, joined by the other five soloists in merry, lilting chorus that suggests laughter. The bass Cyril Costanzo's art was enhanced by whip-like flourishes of brass and wind. Even lovelier,  the well decorated soprano passages, which lead into a  beautiful blending of solo voices and orchestra.  A pause: and then the exquisite chorus. "They that go out weeping....shall come back in exultation, carrying their sheaves with them.  Christie balances the voices so finely that one really hears "sheaves", united and golden.

If these Grand Motets weren't enough, Christie continued with so many encores that the  BBC schedule was thrown off kilter, and only one can be heard on rebroadcast. Haha! I thought, admiring Christie's sense of humour and bravado.  The photo above shows Christie having fun in fancy dress. Since I'd come for the music (and for Les Arts Flo) I was glad I could stay, and not worry about mundane things like missing the last bus. "Hahahahahaha " went the chorus in the excerpt from Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville's In exitu Israel (1753) on exactly the same subject.   A brilliant choice!  Just as in Rameaus In convertendo Dominus, the Hebrews are laughing because they've been freed. Rameau's laughter is more subtle, Mondonville's more crude, "crowd pleasing" to the point of being coarse.  Christie is making a point. Mondonville was more fashionable at the time, but as we know now, Rameau has had the last laugh.

Christie continued with an extract from Rameau's Castor et Pollux which was used with words of Kyrie Eléison for Rameau's funeral Mass. The opera and its successors meant a lot to the composer, and to Christie, who conducted Hippolyte et Aricie at Glyndebourne last year (read my review HERE). Christie is no fool. Respect his choices. He knows baroque style better than most, and chose as director Jonathan Kent, with whom he created the magnificent Glyndebourne Purcell The Fairy Queen. "If it's good enough for Bill Christie", my companion said, "It's good enough for me". At the interval at Glyndebourne we bumped into Christie himself, and told him. He beamed with delight, his eyes twinkling. "That's what I like", he grinned.

Christie and Les Arts Florissantes ended with a excerpt from Les Indes Galantes, their greatest hit, which revolutionized public perceptions of the genre.The baroque era was audacious, given to extravagant, crazy extremes. People embraced the new world outside Europe, and delighted in exotic fantasy. Po-faced literalism is an aberration of late 20th century culture, dominated by TV.  To really appreciate baroque style, it helps to understand the period. "You have to steep yourself in historical, performance practice", says Christie. "it has to become completely natural and spontaneous. If the public starts to become aware of the archaeological aspects, then we've failed. I think one of the reasons we've had success in Les Arts Florissants is because we've become completely instinctive". This fabulous Prom unleashed the joy, energy and wit in the style. Christie makes Rameau, and the spirit of his age, come alive.

Rameau Zaïs Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment QEH

Shepherdesses, gods and supernatural sylphs, jostling merrily together in Jean-Philippe Rameau's Zaïs, performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment complete with dancers.,This is the latest venture by the Rameau Project, a multi-disciplinary group dedicated to Rameau scholarship. In October, Anacréon (1754), reconstructed from archival sources, and Pigmalion will receive their modern premieres.

Zaïs (1748) opens with a Prologue in which the orchestra depicts Chaos itself - the origin of the Universe, from the Elements - Earth, Air, Fire and Water - are brought into being, an ambitious concept, but one which reflects the audacious bravado of the high Baroque.  The strings scream turbulence like howling winds, and percussion beats thunder. Four flautists stand apart from the main body of the orchestra, playing wavering lines that might suggest flames. Anyone still under the misapprehension that period instruments can't do gusto needs to hear the energy of the OAE, unleashing the creation of the Sun no less, and the world of gods and men. A woodwind chorus plays birdsong, reminding us how deeply Messiaen's roots reached into the past. Jonathan Williams conducted, bringing out the sprightly humour in the work which I feel is so important in the idiom. Rameau was a radical in his day, no po-faced curmudgeon.

Zaïs, King of the Sylphs, has fallen in love with a mortal, the shepherdess, and she with him, thinking he's a shepherd. Jeremy Budd and Louise Alder wore normal concert black, as did Ashley Riches (Cindor), Katherine Watson (Amour). David Stout (Oromanés), Katherine Manley (The High Priestess), Anna Dennis (A Sylphide) and Gwilym Bowen, a cupid-like Sylph. This was surprisingly effective. Realism is not of the essence in an allegory like this, any more than in the pastorals of Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard or Le Petit Trianon.  Choreography is hard to authenticate, but it was interesting how this dancing reflected the music. Edith Lalonger had the dancers use stylized poses, their arms hovering in the air during pauses in the music. What did real shepherdesses wear in those times?   They can't have moved like characters in a toile de jouy. These certainly weren't Grecians of Antiquity. So it's fair to imagine them as 18th century Parisians re-imaging the past.  Are the costumes in Rameau's operas an elaboration of normal court dress, if "normal" could ever apply to Versailles? 

The love between Zaïs and Zélidie,transgresses social boundaries so must be tested throufgh a series oif trials. which involve impersonation and deception, magic flowers and offers of immortality. The role of Zaïs is far more demanding than the others, so it would be quite unfair to quibble about the use of a score. Budd has the notes and carries them with fine flow: Zaïs must be quite some guy. Interestingly, Rameau seems to give more gravitas to the male characters than to the women,  allowing Riches and Stout some very good moments. The choruses were the Choir of the Age of Enlightenment and Les Plaisirs des Nations.

The dancing gives visual content to abstract ideas. I thought of the way French philosophy predicates on formal logic and precision. Boulez, for example, studied and conducted Rameau. Eventually, love wins out. Zaïs and Zélidie are miraculously time shifted into  barren desert. Thunderclaps in the orchestra and whirling winds. These could hardly be staged realistically in the short time frame Rameau gives them, but the storm is more allegory than nature. This is an aesthetic very different indeed from later forms of opera. Hopefully the Rameau Project will enlighten us further. Cuthbert Girdlestone's monumental biography of Rameau remains the cornerstone, but much has happened in Rameau studies since it appeared in 1959. Graham Sadler's new book is eagerly awaited.

Please see my other pieces on Rameau : Platée (Prince kisses Frog), Hippolyte et Aricie
 Les Indes Galantes, Castor and Pollux.(Shocking but Not Wrong)...

Handel Rinaldo Baroque Puppets

Tickets are now on sale for Glyndebourne's Handel Rinaldo, (read my review here)  But at the Baden  State Theatre in Karlsruhe, a really special Rinaldo staged with puppets! In Baroque times, puppetry was a respected art form.  Baroque marionettes sprang from much older traditions that hark back to medieval street and religious theatre. Wood carving craftmanship, still very significant in many parts of Europe, adapted well to the elaborate Baroque taste for fantasy and extravagance. Kings might experience Baroque spectacles on a grand scale. Through marionette theatres, humbler audiences could enjoy things on a more miniature scale. Puppets aren't real but they're magical, and fun.

This new Rinaldo  has been created by Carlo Colla & Figli is a world-renowned Italian puppet company that has been staging performances of classical tales and plays for more than 200 years. Have a look at their website for photos of their productions and also of their workshops. Puppeteer Paiero Corbella told Deutsche Welle about the painstaking craftmanship behind the tradition. "While the secondary characters have only six strings, the main characters in the production have up to 25 strings. That way, explains Corbella, they can carry out complicated movements such as placing their hand on their brow in a tragic gesture or moving their mouths to mimic the singing. Having this range of movement is important in order to capture the historical traditions of Baroque theater, which is based on stylized, emotional gestures".

This Rinaldo is being performed with the Lautten Compagney, whose conductor Wolfgang Katschner says  "We are combining historical music with a special kind of historical theater - which results in something very magical and beautiful, The marionettes act out the libretto [the opera text] in a very naive, simple manner to magical effect." Read more here.

Lots more on puppets and their use in opera on this site, follow the label "Puppets and circus" on the right

ENO Rodelinda Handel Hip and oddly HIP

The ENO's Rodelinda will shock some, but the real shock is that it's closer to Handelian values than one might expect.  Glyndebourne's 1998 Rodelinda was ground breaking and has pretty much defined the opera for modern audiences. The ENO doesn't have the budget for singers like Antonacci, Scholl and Streit, and no matter how good he is, Christian Curnyn could never get the ENO orchestra quite up to the level that William Christie got from the specialist OAE. Surprisingly,  the new ENO Rodelinda justifies itself rather well in its own terms.

Richard Jones's Rodelinda, designed by Jeremy Herbert, illuminates the music with a true Baroque palette: burnished gold, amber, emerald, silver and  cream. Action moves between small, confined "rooms" in the set, but this also reflects the music. This is an opera based on solo show pieces,  as each character reflects on his or her own perspective on proceedings, often misunderstanding other people's motivations. Everyone thinks Bertarido is dead, Garibaldo scams Grimoaldo and Eduige, and Bertarido stabs Unulfo, his best friend. Only when the characters realize that simplicity and tolerance are more important than self advancement do they properly reconcile "Dopo la notte oscura più lucido, più chiaro,più amabile, più caro ne spunta il sol quaggiù.Tal dopo ria sventura, figlio d’un bel soffrire, più stabile gioire nasce dalla virtù". At the ENO this is of course translated but it's worth quoting in the original since it refers to the contrasts of dark and light so central to the ENO production. Thus the final scene is specially beautiful. Grimoaldo blows up a giant statue, the symbol of earthly power and vanity. The stage is dominated  by the statue's huge arm bearing the name "Rodelinda" in elaborate baroque script. Love remains when all else is destroyed. The singers are dwarfed, their self interest subsumed by greater harmony. Perhaps one could read a political sub-text into this Hanoverian opera, but it's elegantly cloaked in Classical balance.

Modern tastes are shaped by 19th century operatic styles further  modified by movies and TV, so we've come to expect a much greater degree of realism than Handel and his audiences would have expected. The Glyndebourne Rodelinda, directed by Jean-Marie Villégier, was "modern" in the sense that it emphasized the undercurrents of emotional realism in the opera, giving 20th century audiences an insight into the opera's basic meaning. Richard Jones 's more stylized formalism is closer to the rough-and-ready world of Handel's era, when audiences saw opera as allegory rather than verité. Hence the singers at the ENO journey on travelators, so we can listen to the music unfold when there's no obvious action. Baroque audiences also loved special effects. They didn't have the technology to do video, but the ENO projections (by Jeremy Herbert and Steven Williams) are totally in keeping with the genre.

Rebecca Evans sang Rodelinda, and Susan Bickley's Eduige had was imposing vocally and visually. Iestyn Davies's Bertarido  was very good, his duet with Rebecca Evans in the final act particularly impressive.  What a joy this opera is for those (like me) who love the countertenor voice. Christopher Ainslie as Unulfo doesn't have as big a role but he makes his mark. Richard Burkhard sang Garibaldo, the "bad guy" as baritones should be in Baroque parlance. John Mark Ainsley is arguably the finest British Baroque specialist of our time, and at his peak would have been outstanding. He's still well worth hearing and has stage presence. He's also got guts, showing his bare chest and back, with a Rodelinda tattoo. Humour is very much a part of the humane message in this opera and the production accessed it well.

As in all productions, there are things to like and dislike. I'm not generally a Richard Jones fan, but this Rodelinda has more merits than some would appreciate.

photos: Clive Barda, courtesy ENO

Prince kisses Frog - Rameau Platée

As the opening credits for the classic Laurent Pelly production of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Platée roll, we hear Marc Minkowski conduct Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble over a  shot of an elegant French palace. But wait! We hear the sounds of frogs croaking : the tumult almost but not quite shatters the poise of the orchestra. But that's exactly what Platée represents.(Details of Paul Agnew conducting Platée in London are here).

Rameau wrote Platée to entertain Louis XV and his court on the occasion of the Dauphin's marriage in 1745. The bride was a Spanish Infanta, but she was ugly. Platée is a frog whose realm is a pond in the wilds, the opposite of refined, elegant Versailles. But she/he has pretensions: she/he thinks everyone she meets will fall in  love with her. The part was written for a travesti, a man pretending to be a woman, which makes the satire rather cruel. As it happened, the princess died very young and the prince never became king. Yet given what we know of Rameau and the way he had to court the rich, perhaps the laughs are ultimately on the Gods and their abuse of power.

Laurent Pelly's production, (from 2002) uses a set, designed by Chantal Thomas to show the long Prologue in a theatre. Usherettes show members of the chorus to their seats but within minutes, order descends into relative chaos. the chorus members bounce up and down and swap places, "dancing" rather than staying put as they should. Study the detail in the movements, which replicate the liveliness in the music. Indeed, at times the horizontals of the set resemble manuscript paper and the chorus members notation. Rameau's music and precise dance figures come alive! Thespis, Momus and Thalie, the muses of satire, are exhausted after a night of drunken carousing, but the chorus wants a show. .

The Gods Jupiter (Vincent Le Texier) and Mercury (Yann Beuron) appear in (almost) plain clothes - more like mortals with problmes than all-powerful beings like the rulers of the House of Bourbon. Jupiter is the king of the Gods but his wife Juno is giving him strife, so he and Mercury concoct a cruel plan. Knowing that Platée is desperate for love, Jupiter pretends he wants to marry her.  But Paul Agnew's Platée the Nymph  is a creation of genius. The costume's brilliant: Agnew's masculine muscles look hilariously awkward with his pink water lily tutu. Incredibly good acting - every gesture frog-like and grotesque, yet painfully poignant. He jumps clumsily instead of dancing. Plateée is an amphibian out of his/her natural element, easy prey for the cynical Gods. Trumpets usher in formal, courtly music,  but the chorus are lit with green light,, with big google eyes: a chorus as one can hear at nightfall. A storm is brewing. Wonderful divertissements, choreographed with meticulous attention to the music. Drums roll. Jupiter descends from the heavens in a giant chandelier.  "Aquilons, trop audacieux, craignez ma colère". Don't mess with me,  you uppity water creatures! A stunning coup of theatre that would have the snobs at Versailles cackling with delight.

Rameau's music for Platée subverts the grandeur, however. "Qoui, qoui, qoui," he/she sings, "venez, venez, venez". Short squat flurries, not elegant legato. Mad cacophony from the woodwinds. Jupiter, now disguised as the "Hibou" in the text, covers his ears in disgust. Fireworks spew from Jupiter's hands, and La Folie appears, a vision of sparkling white, a glorious contrast to the grubbiness around her. Mireille Delunsch looks divine; madness purer and clearer than godliness. Her dress, significantly, is made from scraps of musical manuscript. at one stage she pulls bits off to "sing" them. This is a masterful stroke of theatre, extravagant in the audacious Baroque style, yet also pertinent to meaning. More wonderfully choreographed passages of male ballerinas en deshabillé. Delunsch walks towards the orchestra and "conducts" before launching into an extended display of maddeningly florid trills and rapid fire decoration. "L'amour est cruel quand il est outragé!". Her music then becomes plaintive "funebres,  underpinned by a menacing drone from the orchestra. A mournful dance for a wedding ? "Je veux finir par un coup de génie, ...Je sens que je puis parvenir au chef-d'oeuvre de la harmonie". Sure enough, harps are plucked solemnly and the nuptial ensemble join in harmony, starting with "Hymen, Hymen" and descending into a more ironic "Bon, bon, bon".

The Third Act begins when a figure with a colourful,  realistic frog head appears in a box above the stage, giving Minkowski the cue to start conducting. The frog enters the pitch and snatches the baton with a flourish at the exact moment the overture ends. The frog has been glimpsed before, observing proceedings. Now it's becoming part of the action. More dancing, as was de rigueur in celebrations like this, but the guests have been partaking of Bacchus, and their inhibitions relax. Cupid pops by, and the Three graces, all in underwear, as Platée begins to twig that perhaps love isn't all it's cracked up to be. When he/she spots The Frog among the guests, she greets him with a warm embrace. He hands her a bouquet of wild water lilies. Just as the wedding is about to take place, Juno (Doris Lamprecht) storms in to stop proceedings. The wedding guests drag Platée mercilessly on the ground. "Chantons, Platée, égayons nous". But Platée isn't fooled any more. Vivid exchange where she/he argues with Clitheron (Laurent Naouri) the satyr who set her up right at the beginning "Moi, Qui? Moi" "Toi, Oui, Toi" Then Platée sings, rather than imitates a croak, and jumps back into his/her pond.

Medici tv is screening this Platée from the Palais Garnier 2002, as part of its year-long tribute to Rameau. It is a timely reminder that the Baroque era embraced adventure, and French baroque in particular was fun and energetic. Rameau himself was an innovator and also something of a misfit in the upper echelons of the aristocracy.  So enjoy this Platée and the wonderful performances within, and appreciate its verve and intelligence. Pelly is a master of French style and works with the best in the field. Someone said of his Meyerbeer Robert le Diable that he "didn't take the opera seriously enough". On the contrary. He understands the genre fine: It's those who don't who should be taking him more seriously.

Glyndebourne Hippolyte et Aricie Rameau revitalized

Glyndebourne revitalizes Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie. Baroque tastes were extravagant. Louis XIV, Le Roi Soleil, and his successor Louis XV,  epitomized the aesthetic: audacity, not gentility, vigour, not timidity. When Hippolyte et Aricie was premiered in 1733, it was considered radically inventive. So it's appropriate that Glyndebourne should present Rameau with the same spirit of adventure. William Christie has shown many times before that baroque thrives on daring and panache.

So the Prologue starts with a shock calculated to shake things up. Diana, the Goddess is in a refrigerator. But she's the Goddess of frigidity. Why not show her in a Frigidaire?  She has a frigid, rigid mindset. . For her, feelings should be sealed in air-tight compartments. So Diana comes out of the freezer cabinet. Her colours are those of frost, and the "pale sterile moon". Nature, though, is having nothing of artificial cool. In the egg compartment, Cupid is breaking out of a shell, challenging Diana with bright colours and joyously lively song.

Hippolyte, the son of Theseus is in love with Aricie, who has dedicated herself to the service of Diana, the Virgin Queen. Hippolyte's stepmother, Phaedra, lusts after him. Ironically, her husband Theseus is off saving a friend who has committed adultery with the wife of Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. We enter l'Enfer, where hell fire reigns: the reverse of the refrigerator, where overheated workings splutter in darkness and dirt. Is death more colourful than Diana's sterile temple? The denizens of the Underworld have merrier dances. A group of Flies.with elaborate wings, pirouette gleefully. Decay is part of the cycle of Nature. Without it, no rebirth. Theseus calls on his father, Neptune, for help and escapes. The Parques (The Fates) warn "Tu sors de l’infernal Empire, pour trouver les Enfers chez toi."

Rameau writes a Tempest into his music, which even now, when we're used to extreme theatre, is strikingly dramatic. At Glyndebourne, we get strobe lights, Rameau's audiences, who loved mechanical special effects, would have been thrilled by electricity. Neptune is the God of the Ocean, so his minions are "matelots".  At Glyndebourne, they appear as a chorus of French sailors. This is perfectly in keeping with the music. Rameau adapts a hornpipe jig. It's meant to be gay (in the old sense of the word) "Tous les cœurs sont matelots ; On quitte le repos : On vole sur les flots;"

Theseus blames his son for his wife's infidelity. Hippolyte follows Aricie into Diana's world. A dead stag hangs from the rafters.  Diana, despite her disdain for passion, is also the Goddess of the Hunt, and an agent of death  Aricie is initiated into the cult by being blooded. It's not gruesome, though, for Rameau's sense of elegance precludes overt barbarism. At Glyndebourne, Diana's followers are seen in hunting reds, the men's wigs oddly peaked as if they were foxes. Hippolyte disappears in a puff of smoke, presumably dead. Phaedra dies, too. This time, the Underworld is depicted as a morgue, pointedly designed like Diana's chilled-out Temple. But Hippolyte is no more dead than Theseus was when he went into hell. The lovers are reunited happily ever after. In this production, the ghost of Phaedra appears to observe proceedings. It's a nice touch, which fits in with the mood of healing and kindness. No grand showpiece arias here. Instead, the exquisite "Rossignols amoureux" a delicate air for soprano accompanied only by flute, exceptionally beautifully played by a soloist in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Ed Lyon sang Hippolyte, fresh and youthful but no ingénue. Lyon's voice is assertive, suggesting strength in the character beyond the restraints of the text. That's perceptive. With his genes, Hippolyte is no wimp. Christiane Karg sang Aricie with charm and energy. Katharine Watson sang Diana, and Ana Quintans sang a vivacious Cupid.  Quintands also sang the crucial Nightingale Song, in the guise of a shepherdess. So Cupid has triumphed ! François Lis was a magnificently characterful Pluto/Jupiter, well supported by Loïc Felix's Tisiphone. Sarah Connolly (Phaedra) and Stéphane Degout (Theseus) were exceptional, wonderfully assured singing and stage presence.

Together with Lis, Connolly and Degout (one of the finest French singers of his generation) sang their parts in the Paris production last year with Emmanuelle Haïm, where the set was a reconstruction of what the opera might have looked like in 1733. That was important because it clearly showed the cast in costumes that were "modern" at the time. Rameau wasn't depicting Greeks or Greek Gods but archetypes in a setting his own audiences could relate to.  So much for the notion of period specificity. True period authenticity is fascinating, for me, anyway. But it doesn't necessarily do much for modern audiences, who might find the succession of dances less easy to take. The Glyndebourne production, directed by Jonathan Kent, with designs by Paul Brown, doesn't actually "update", to use the much misused term, but treats the opera as something fresh and exciting, as it might have seemed to audiences nearly 300 years ago  Like the cycle of Nature, life goes on when things renew. The humour is entirely appropriate, and the dances are brightly characterized. One other good moment: when Sarah Connolly descends off the stage as Phaedra preparing to die, the auditorium goes completely dark for much longer than usual. She's such a big star that audiences expect an exit as dramatic as that. She doesn't get to sing anymore, but the memory lingers on.

Most credit, however, to William Christie. What animated, vivid playing he draws from the  Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. How the singers seem inspired by his enthusiasm! He's visionary. He understand the baroque and its aesthetic so well that he can teach us a great deal about the idiom. His Rameau Les Indes Galantes (recorded on DVD) is an education. Christie brings out the vivacious, almost anarchic vigour that is at the heart of French baroque. He's worked with Jonathan Kent before (Purcell Fairy Quuen, Glyndebourne). My companion said "If this is good enough for Bill Christie, it's good enough for me". By sheer coicidence we bumped into Christie himself a few minutes later, and told him. He beamed. "That's the sort of feedback I like to hear!". I hope it helped to make his day. Certainly, with this performance, he made mine.

Complete review and cast list in Opera Today
Photos c. Bill Cooper, courtesy Glyndebourne Festival

Hippolyte et Aricie Rameau Glyndebourne Part One

Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie at Glyndebourne last night. CLICK HERE FOR MY FULL REVIEW. Haha! Judging by the applause most of the audience entered into its vivacious spirit of fun. Anarchy is "true" to the baroque ethos of throwing everything together in as extrreme form as possible. Hence Greek Gods, mythic heroes, symbols of virtue all tumbled in together and presented with the most audacious effects possible. If 17th/18th century producers had electricity and flying guy wires, you bet they would have used them. Indeed, some of the costumes (esp the demons) could come straight out of period illustrations. And so the show starts with an audacious shock: Diana the Goddess in a refrigerator.

That should drive the "purists"crazy. But Diana is the goddess of frigidity. So why not depict her in a Frigidaire? Rameau emphasizes her frigid, rigid mindset. For her, feelings should be sealed in air tight compartments. Ultra chill. Diana comes out of the freezer. Her colours are those of frost, and the "pale sterile moon".

Nature, though, is having nothing of artificial cool. In the egg compartment, Cupid is breaking out, challenging Diana with bright colours and.....love. Hippolyte loves Aricie but she's dedicated herself to Diana and Diana's anti-love values. So we enter the realms of the Underworld where hell fire reigns. Is hell the opposite of Dian'a cool? So the Devil stands astride the over-heated workings of a fridge, where things go wrong with the wiring. Loved the bluebottle flies! Gloriously funny and oddly beautiful. They've come to feast on decay, which is what happens when Nature takes its natural course. In any case, the downside of Diana's frigid rule is violence and death. She's the goddess of the hunt, symbolized by dead stags. Her maidens look pure, but they are blooded.The denizens of the Underworld turn out to be more kind-hearted than the goddess.

 Diana gets her revenge. Phaedra falls hopelessly in love with Hippolyte and curses him because he doesn't love her back.  The problem is that Phaedra is married to Theseus, Hippolyte's father and Dad's so mad he wants his son dead. So he calls on his own father, the God Neptune who just happens to controls the seas and storms. So Grandad sends down a Tempest, while his underlings, the matelots, dance. The matelots are in fact defined as such in the score, though they might as well be any other symbol of Neptune's power. Besides, Rameau needed a chorus to balance Diana's chorus of devotees.

In Rameau's time, audiences would have got the references to classical symbols and picked up on details like the strange peaks in the hunters' wigs - like foxes' ears!  Nowadays, unfortunately, some - not all - audiences seem to pride themselves on determinedly "not" getting anything and stomping down anyone else. Alas, their loss. William Christie probably knows more about Rameau and the baroque aesthetic than most of us ordinary mortals. He conducted with verve and glee, inspiring similarly enthusiastic singing of which I'll write more later.

My partner whispered. "If this is good enough for William Christie, it's good enough for me". By sheer coincidence who should we meet at the interval but William Christie himself. So I told him. He burst out laughing. "That's exactly the sort of feedback I like to hear!". Perhaps iit helped to make his day. Certainly, he made mine.

HERE is my full review in Opera Today
photo : Bill Cooper, courtesy Glyndebourne Festival

Shakespeare's Globe with ROH extras

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre isn't the original Elzabethan Globe theatre but a 1997 recreation,  geared to the international market for Shakespeare experiences. It's Stratford-upon-Avon South, and even more "authentic" in some ways in that it's near where Shakespeare actually worked. In January 2014,  the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opens to the public, extending the Globe's potential. Sam Wanamaker was the visionary behind the new Globe, so it's good that he's being commemorated with a new building that will expand the Globe's potential.

For a long time, it's been apparent that the Royal Opera House needs a new medium sized performance space  for productions that are smaller scale than merit the main house but too big for the Linbury Studio Theatre. Perhaps the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse might fit the bill? Certainly it would be an interesting place to do baroque and other works loosely connected to the 17th and 18th centuries, but I don't think it's a long term total alliance.  Outsourcing is not a bad idea. The ENO has been using the Young Vic for years, and the Barbican is expanding across the road and to Milton Court. It makes business sense and doesn't involve spending millions. Only the South Bank seems fixated on  keeping things in one place whatever the cost or the logic. Read my article : Band Aid or Surgery - rethinking the South Bank)

So the Globe Theatre. Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and the Royal Opera House are planning a joint venture for March 2014. Francesco Cavalli’s L’Ormindo which  was first staged in Venice in 1644 at the Teatro San Cassiano. "The intimate nature of the work performed by nine singers and eight musicians in the intimacy of the theatre will provide a rare experience of Baroque opera, and a level of authenticity that promises to be richly revealing as well as rewarding." Perhaps it might work in the Linbury, but that's not the point. It's being done in a performance space that fits the aesthetic, and suggests new possibilities.Photos of the new theatre's interior show a modern foyer with a classically-inspired but elegant  "Jacobean" stage.

"Kasper Holten, Director of The Royal Opera, directs a production that draws on the theatrical conventions in London at the time, with music under the direction of Christian Curnyn, one of the most sought after Baroque specialists of today. And as the opera will be performed in English, this is a rare opportunity to discover not only the immediacy of a stage world of jealous lovers, elopement and the intervention of Fortune and Destiny but also the unique qualities of Baroque opera itself."

Excellent cast, created under the auspices  of the Early Opera Company, familiar to London baroque audiences. It certainly seems up market, and will help put the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on the cultural map.

The new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse certainly doesn't exist "just" for opera. Even before L'Ormindo, the SWP will present "Mozart in London" a series related to Mozart's year in London. Trevor Pinnock curates a series of performances and readings which will feature no less than Kristian Bezuidenhout, Carolyn Sampson, Alina Ibragimova and Chiaroscuro. In April 2014, I Fagiolini led by Robert Hollingworth will be doing "The Boat from Venice to Padua", Monteverdi Madrigals and duets and Barca di Venezia per Padova.(1605) a short musical comedy by monk and musical prankster Adriano Banchieri. It will be staged by Peter Wilson. This is typical I Fagilioni adventure!

Dancing Baroque? Handel and Rameau

Handel's Giulio Cesare at the ENO raises intereesting questions. Michael Keegan-Dolan is a choreographer, so his staging would naturally emphasize dancing, not singing or even drama. Dance is part of the baroque aesthetic, but to what extent? If any composer is associated with dance it's Rameau. Rameau's rhythms throb in intricate patterns, so energetic that they beg expression through physical action. Prior to Stravinsky, Rameau defined movement in music.

Rameau's Les Indes galantes is now available on medici.tv.  It's a work of near genius, with William Christie and Les Arts Florissantes who have the genre in thir souls. Christie shows how vital and vivid period performance can be, done well and on its own terms. The cast is particularly strong - Partricia Petibon, Nicolas Rivenq, Danielle De Neise, Nathan Berg, João Fernandes, Christoph Stehl,  Malin Hartelius etc) so it's pretty outstanding. Baroque is stylized, but it isn't dull. The acting, directed by Andrei Serban, is full of wit and personality. True to the baroque spirit,  the designs (Marina Draghici) are extravagant. Rameau chose his subjects because they'd be visually exciting to audiences in his day who had probably never seen much of Peruvians, Turks or "the savages of America". Draghici can thus blend elements of alien cultures with fantasy : a Matelot in an Ottoman Court, for example, and a stunning recreation of the Inca God of the Sun. Magically lit and beautifully filmed.

But this Les Indes galantes is essential, I think, for dance fans because it shows how dance can be integrated into an opera. The choreographer is Blanca Li. She "conducts" the dancers as effectively as Christie conducts singers and players. Ensembles move as the music moves, dancers are individualized just as instruments are individualized.  The elegant orderliness of Rameau's music allows quite complex choreography, which Li and her dancers execute flawlessly. For three hours!  These people are seriously fit.  Blanca Li blends different dance styles, like getting the "Savages" to strike angular poses, channelling Diaghilev in the Rite of Spring. Again, the spirit of baroque, all influences joyously mixed in riotous profusion.  I didn't go to the ENO Handel Guilio Cesare last night, having seen Michael Keegan- Dolan's last ENO double bill. His Rite of Spring wasn't bad because the dancing "spoke".  His Duke Bluebeard's Castle fell apart for me because dramatically the ideas weren't thought through. So maybe that's the conundrum choreographers have to face when they stage opera. Dance is a tool, but dramatic logic is what makes dance in opera work.

Christie Charpentier David et Jonathas Aix

Marc-Antoine Charpentier's David et Jonathas live from Aix-en-Provence is now available streamed outside France on arte.tv This is one of the big highlights of the baroque year. It's major profile because William Christie conducts, and anything he and Les Arts Florissantes dedicate themselves to is a milestone. The production travels to the Opéra comique in Paris, to Caen, Madrid and concerrft stagings in Edinburgh and elsewhere. Christie excels - watch the elegance of his conducting (very well picked up on film),

Musically this is divine, the intricate correspondances  done with exquiste clarity and delicacy. In David et Jonathas, this freedom of spirit is very much part of what the opera is about. David is a hero, who has killed Goliath, but the times he lives in are turbulent. War, intrigue, bluff and counter-bluff, the sordid stuff of politics. Although David is loyal to King Saul, he's forced to flee to the Philistines who welcome him. Despite negotiations for peace, war breaks out again, Briefly David and Jonathas are reunited, but Jonathas is killed. Saul dies, heartbroken. David becomes King.

We know the plot from the Old Testament, but Charpentier fleshes it out with wonderful music. The parts for David and Jonathas are beautiful: theirs is a love story as much as a symbol of purity against a background of sordid violence. Christie chooses his singers well. Pascal Charbonneau, who sings David, frequently reaches countertenor territory. The part was written for alto, to contrast with the very low baritone of Saul, (Neal Davis)  and the bass of Achis (Frédéric Caton). Ana Quintans sings Jonathas. It's a trouser part because a high. bright voice shows how young and beautiful Jonathas was, beloved by all.

The interplay between voices and orchestra  is superb, the formal patterns of baroque art expressed in music. Brightness and depth, constant weaving of textures - political intrigue woven into the very fabric of the form.  Christie's precision keeps the layers bright : no room for approximation in this score.

 Thus Andreas Hoimoki's staging worked extremely well with the clarity of Christie's approach, and with Charpentier's idiom. The set (Paul Zoller) is as simple, throwing focus on the singers, yet a pine panelling background lit as luminously as this evokes the golden glow of baroque paintings and indeed the instruments in the orchestra.

Intelligent use of space and boxed space to create the flow of exterior and crowd scenes, and interior, private intensity. The long non-vocal passages might once have been filled with formal masques. Here, they're used to hint at background. Jonathas, as a young boy, stands before the bier of his dead mother. The young David enters and comforts him, but Saul's disturbed to see them embrace. He in turn embraces the portrait of his late wife which mesmerized hius son. Costumes are timeless, sufficiently middle eastern to remind us of Biblical times.

The Israelites and Philistines are distinguished by their music rather than by costume (some of the Philistines wear a red fez), but again this is true to plot. For thouands of years before 1948, there was conflict in these lands. Charpentier and his audiences weren't in the least bothered about historical accuracy, so neither should we be. Indeed, seeing Jonathas clothed in short pants (not robe) is a subtle reminder that David and Jonathan relationships have happened throughout history. Homoki doesn't over-emphasize, but Charpentier and his audiences weren't naive. Chorus scenes are well blocked, almost like choreography: I kept thinking of 17th century paintings, utterly approrpriate to Charpentier's period.
(photo : Pascal Victor)

Common sense about the Met's The Enchanted Island

When the Met did The Enchanted Island Martin Bernheimer tore it to shreds, and many others followed (almost word for word). Yet many enjoyed it.  At the cinema I went to, the audience were cheerful even though the opera lasted a long time. What was the fuss about then? Partly, it was the word "pastiche" which means something negative in modern English. So people worry that if they'd had a good time, they'd be showing "bad taste", even the ones who claimed to know pastiche meant something different 300 years ago. But "purist" is a snotty 20th century concept, often employed by people too insecure to let on that they don't know what they're talking about. Real "purists" would have recognized in The Enchanted Island a true example of baroque spirit.

In baroque times, composers churned out dozens of opera to entertain their audiences. No qualms about recycling good ideas. Scores weren't printed, and copying expensive. In any case, audiences liked hearing tunes they recognized. No recordings to freeze productions into fossils. Similarly, audiences had no hang-ups about endlessly rehashed narratives.  Complicated plots weren't a problem for those who read Tasso and Metastasio in the original.

Perfhaps part of the negative reception was that Peter Gelb attracts so much hate that no-one could bring themselves to accept that The Enchanted Island was pretty good. Not genius, but fantastic theatre. Had it been premiered in Europe, it would have been a success (remember the Glyndebourne Purcell The Fairy Queen, (see here), also William Christie and Jeremy Sams? Both of them know their baroque better than average.  This is what I wrote about the Met's The Enchanted Island last January "Met Enchanted Island - deeper than expected".
 
Now here is someone else, a baroque specialist who's seen it and comments positively too. He also dismisses the idea that hiding the list of items was a kind of conspiracy, as some suggested. Some who know the original works the bits came from recognized them anyway. The writer also praises the stagecraft which was amazing - exactly in the true spirit of baroque extravagance. How could anyone miss Placido coming out of the sky? Or that boat, flying in from the wings? Live, it must have been so over the top!  True baroque spectacle. Now THAT was a proper use of the Met's thing for expensive machinery and extravagant display. (though in fact it was cleverly done rather than gargantuan).

Here's the link: to Joel Cohen's article in the Boston Musical Intelligencer, and thanks to whoever sent it to Norman Lebrecht. 

The Enchanted Island at the Met - deeper than expected

Extravagance is the essence of baroque, but few houses can do spectacles as well as the Met. So when the  Met throws its might behind The Enchanted Island, it can create a spectacle worthy of the genre. At last Met technology put to good use - this is baroque as it should be done! William Christie is one of the great baroque specialists, and a guiding force behind Purcell The Fairy Queen at Glyndebourne in 2009. That may have been part of the inspiration for The Enchanted Island, for both take material from various sources and present them as glorious extravaganza. Christie and the Met also use some of the finest singers in the genre.
 
Perhaps the idea that The Enchanted Island is a "new" opera panics people. But why not? "Pastiche" carries negative connotations now, but didn't in baroque times when recycling was part of what went into theatre. Recordings didn't exist then, so composers were expected to re-use popular melodies so people could enjoy them again. That's also partly why baroque operas adapt similar ideas over and over. Audiences delighted in new ways of hearing old. How many of Vivaldi's operas were all "new" or even all Vivaldi? And how many adaptations of Ariosto and Tasso? The baroque aesthetic blended characters  from ancient antiquity and medieval myth in joyous riot. Even Mozart had no qualms about recycling a good tune. So snobbery about this kind of pastiche is misguided. Indeed, I suspect the choices made in The Enchanted Island are wittier than might be expected.

The secret to The Enchanted Island is to take the story as it comes,  just as baroque audiences would have done centuries ago. The basic premise is that Prospero has usurped Sycorax on her island, and pushes his weight around. That's why Shakespeare's The Tempest gets banned in Arizona. It's a simile for what happens when indigenous people are colonized by masters from over the seas. Caliban has long been seen as a metaphor for the Third World.  Perhaps Shakespeare wasn't political, but there's no reason why a reworking of the premise shouldn't tease out new meaning from an old story. Handel did it all the time, as did many others. William Christie and Jeremy Sams emphasize the anarchy inherent in the plot. Please read what Sams wrote for the British press here.

Prospero (David Daniels) rules the island but Sycorax (Joyce DiDonato) this time fights back, by simply changing dragon's blood for lizard's blood  in the spell Prospero sets for getting off the island.  Immediately, we know that this retelling of the basic story will be mischief!  So Ariel (Danielle de Niese) conjures up a boat. It's the first of many visual special effects which baroque audiences would have gasped at in admiration. Only it's the wrong boat! It's carrying the lovers from A Midsummers Nights Dream, who've already been cast in several guises before. Ariel connects to Puck, Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) to Bottom. Fun is of the essence. More fool those who can't see the humour in The Enchanted Island. In the cinema where I saw it, the audience was chuckling with delight.

Exceptionally good performances from Joyce DiDonato (Sycorax) and Luca Pisaroni (Caliban). DiDonato pretty much creates the part on her own, since it's hardly developed elsewhere, but fundamental to the background of the story. DiDonato is magnificent. Her singing ranges from ethereally high textures to animal-like growls. She's a nature spirit, connected to the mysteries in the jungles of her island. She's also an earth mother who loves her son just as much as Prospero loves Admir'd Miranda (Lisette Oropesa, singing in American). Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) is costumed as half gorilla, but with a sensitive side, (he likes flowers). Pisaroni is a natural actor, moving half crouched and intuitively, like an animal, yet his voice expresses deep emotional feelings.  In The Tempest, Prospero holds all the cards. In The Enchanted Island, the underdogs Sycorax and Caliban get a fair chance. This time, they're evenly balanced, and the meaning of the plot enhanced. Incidentally, the plot is driven by pe-existing baroque materials - nothing 21st century added. Sorceresses on enchanted islands abound throughout the genre.

Then, one of the most magnificent coups de théâtre in recent memory. Ariel calls on the God Neptune nd suddenly he arises from the ocean, surrounded by four mermaids, suspended from the roof. It's an image straight out of baroque fantasy, the sort of scene baroque artists used to paint, except this time it's done with modern stage techniques baroque stage designers could only dream of. It's fantastic in the true, baroque meaning of the word, totally artificial and gloriously splendid at the same time. Some of the chorus fill the foreground, others as singing heads in a backdrop that could come right out of an 18th century painted flat.    Since when did Gods rise up out of the sea, except in the imagination? And part of the baroque aesthetic is to push the boundaries of imagination. Only a house like the Met can pull scenes like this off so well.

This magnificent scene must have been stunning live, given the gasps from the audience, on screen and in the cinema. But it's absolutely fundamental to the whole concept of the plot. Neptune is the Deus ex machina around whom the resolution pivots. What a wonderful way to make the most of Placido Domingo!  He doesn't have to sing much (thankfully) but his acting skills are superb. Again, the anarchic humour in the text. "I'm old, irritable and tired", he sings with a merry grin, "I don't do the high seas". Pun, pun, pun for those who forget he used to be a tenor. It's a measure of Domingo's greatness that he can do acidly witty self parody like this, upstaging the elaborate ostentation around him.

The scene where Pisaroni as Caliban is surrounded by dancers isn't there merely to squeeze in a bit of Rameau but to show how he's "enchanted" by nature spirits half-animal, half-human like himself.  It's crucial to the plot because Caliban is trying his hand at magic spells and conjuring a new world, unintended,  where things will be more in tune with nature. It won't happen, though, as Prospero won't let it. The proscenuim, which magically transforms throught the evening from dense jungle to baroque fanatsy now turns dark, two glowing orbs like the eyes of a wild animal, the stage like a gigantic mouth swallowing Caliban's dreams. It's time now for Neptune to restore the natural order.  In another spectacular scene, Domingo as Neptune conjures up another magnificent boat, complete with the sort of rolling "waves" baroque designers made out of painted horizontal sheets, shaken up and down. At once "traditional" baroque design, with modern technology. At last Ferdinand (Anthony Roth Costanzo) appears. Miranda is saved, and Prospero returned to where he belongs. "Forgive me" he begs Sycorax, and maybe he means it, but our sympathies are with DiDonato's wonderful characterization. But baroque means happy ending, so all join in in standard ensemble, praising new beginnings. Excellent ideas, excellent cast and the Met Orchestra playing idiomatically even though they're using modern instruments (plus harpsichord). The Enchanted Island shows that the Met has huge potential.  Had this piece been heard at Glyndebourne, where audiences are receptive to baroque and to innovation, it would have been greeted with the acclaim that The Fairy Queen received. (read more here)  


And HERE is a link to my most recent post which has another link to something even better.

Handel Rinaldo at Glyndebourne

When Glyndebourne's Handel Rinaldo reaches the Proms on 25th August (live, and broadcast online) make sure you listen, because some of the singing will be very good.  Same principals, different conductor (Lawrence Cummings) and of course, minimal staging.  Hopefully, they'll retain some of the better bits in the production, like the flying bicycles, and drop the kinky boarding school pretence.

Baroque is fun because it's surreal. No-one in their right mind could insist on authentic realism in Rinaldo, simply because it's set in the Crusades. A plot with sorcerers who can whip people over skies and seas? Handel and his audiences had no illusions about being literal. So there's no problem at all with the idea of knights on bicycles, because that's integral to the story. Against Armida's magic, the Crusader's macho bluff is revealed as hollow. Rinaldo gets saved because he's loved.  In fact, you could say the whole idea behind the real Crusades was fantasy. Europeans have long been fascinated by "Eastern Promise" because it offers an alien exoticism they can't get in real life.

So why schoolboys/schoolgirls in the Glyndebourne Rinaldo?  The bad news is that it demeans the story as teenage wet dream. But the good news is that it enhances Sonia Prina's Rinaldo. Prina is a very experienced Handel singer and has worked with director Robert Carsen before, so it's quite feasible that the production was designed round her. There can be little explanation for the recent Meistersinger updating other than to enhance Gerald Finley's Sachs as poet, not cobbler. It's essential that the main role looks and sounds right, so as a choice it has merit. Prina is attractive in a short, compact schoolboy way - think Justin Beiber. She's energetic and earthy, so the production plays to her strengths. If you want an ethereal countertenor, you have to conceive the role in a completely different way.

Originally, Sandrine Piau was cast as Armida, which also makes sense in relation to Sonia Prina, because Piau's so elegant and refined the contrast would be hilarious. For whatever reason, Piau pulled out, and Brenda Rae stepped in. Rae is excellent in this context, because she moves well in 6 inch heels and wiggles her body salaciously, which is aboslutely right for Armida as sex queen (which is implicit in Handel!). The voice has an edge, but again that works with the role.

Best singing from Luca Pisaroni, who is singing the role again, in a different production, in Chicago in a few months. Argante is the King of Jerusalem, a warlord who's quite capable of holding the Crusaders at bay. His weak spot is that he fancies Armida who is by no means a nice Muslim girl, even by the standards of the 11th century. Argante is by no means cardboard villain, as Pisaroni shows, glorying in roccoco flourishes of his entry aria so it shines with colour and complexity. You can "hear" the baroque gold and burnished curlicues in this voice! Fortunately, Handel develops the role, so we get to hear Pisaroni build the other sides of Argante's character. This is important because the ending defies logic unless you think of Argante as a real person. He and Armida make up even though both are seriously strong personalities.

If this Glyndebourne Handel Rinaldo becomes available on DVD or in cinemas, it is definitely worth catching. Perhaps the film direction will moderate the staging, and emphasize the music. Wonderful countertenors, William Towers and Tim Mead. Please read my full review of the live performance at Glyndebourne HERE in Opera Today. More photos, too. Photo above of Brenda Rae and Luca Pisaroni, Alastair Miles, courtesy Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Linley Sheridan and Gainsborough mystery

Thomas Linley's La Duenna opens tomorrow at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio in a production by English Touring Opera. The libretto is by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Linley and Sheridan were the mega-stars of London theatreland in their era, and were related by marriage. Thomas was the father of Elizabeth Linley and Sheridan was her husband. Oddly, the plot of the opera replicates their real life experiences.

In 1980 my father bought a painting at an auction clearing the estate of someone connected to the Hearst family in California. The attribution was Gainsborough Dupont, nephew of Thomas Gainsborough. The painting was brought to the US by the notorious art dealer Joseph Duveen, who'd bought it from a named member of the aristocracy. Provenance possibly safe but these small pieces were never catalogued. In any case, my Dad bought it because it was a good painting.

The girl in the picture was undoubtedly Elizabeth Linley, right bone structure, recognizably a Linley. She's posing slightly flirting, eyes sparkling, a half smile on her lips. What's most interesting, though, is the quality of the painting. The face is extremely well painted, very delicate and expressive. The hair, dress and background are painted in a much looser style, almost like a sketch, fiull of movement. Often you can tell fakes because they're painted in a much more studied, careful style, and come over as cramped. This painter had a sure hand and eye.

Whoever painted the portrait concentrated on capturing personality, rather than a mere likeness. When viewed by candlelight from an angle, it comes alive in the eeriest way, as if whoever painted it knew that that was how the purchaser would use the painting.  Attributions don't mean a lot because this kind of portrait was made for private viewing, and quite probably, the buyer, the painter and the subject knew each other personally.

Gainsborough had known the Linley family from childhood, and painted Elizabeth many times over her lifetime.  It's plausible that the portrait could have been painted by his nephew since they all knew each other. But Gainsborough Dupont was exactly the same age as Elizabeth. If this portrait was made around 1770, both of them were around 17 or 18.  Dupont's later work was formal and stiff, nothing like this.

So who really was the painter? Although it's a fairly straightforward informal piece, it's obviously done by someone who is so sure he can do character that he can dash this off quickly without trying too hard. Since the owner knew the subject, and the subject knew who the portrait was being painted for, little chance of this not having come from life. Undiscovered masterpieces seem to pop up all the time. That's not so surprising since it's only been relatively recently that insurance and security has meant much closer audit.

So for all we know, my father bought a painting by Thomas Gainsborough. It's intriguing because there are portraits of her at other ages but not quite at the end of her teens when she's blossoming into womanhood.  This would have been made at about the time Elizabeth eloped with Sheridan, It was the romantic scandal of the day, two young lovers running off together, but, just as in a play, all turned out well.  I would put up a photo of the painting my father bought, he took lots and wrote a volume of notes. But they and the painting are locked up safely and I can't easily get to them.

Drottningholm - real period Mozart

The Court Theatre at Drottningholm was built in 1766, but was sealed up after the death of  Gustav III, King of Sweden. Thus it survived, pretty much intact until rediscovered in 1921. Like Český Krumlov it's authentic baroque, perfectly preserved.

Drottningholm was a  private Royal theatre, so though it's elaborate, it's tiny. No large wings. Scenes are created by moving a series of proscenium arches. The stage is surprisingly bare, no attempt at fake realism.  "Classical" implies elegance, Grecian simplicity. So much for the myth that opera should be late 19th century excess. If there's anywhere to experience Mozart as he might have been heard in his own time, it's Drottningholm, where even the orchestra  are dressed in wigs and breeches, even the women!

After ENO's Idomeneo, I watched Drottningholm's Idomeneo, filmed in 1991, still available on DVD because it's a classic.  Only one or two of the singers are familiar, but the performance is very good. What's really amazing though is how spare the sets are, and how effective it is.

The backdrop is plain : nothing but a few strips of painted waves at the base. Completely stylized. When they move, it's done by having men shake the boards up and down. What dominates is the blankness of the "sky". Nothing on stage except for a simple bench where Ilia sits, which later turns into a simple altar where Idomeneo faces his gods. The only scenery comes from the prosceniums at the side, which are painted very realistically. One frame simply shows pillars, meaning the palace. Movies and TV had trained us to expect too much realism on stage. Nowadays, audiences would be screaming "Dread Regie". Audiences at Drottningholm would have been bemused. For them, theatre meant using your imagination.

Ilia appears alone, swathed in silver-grey, emphasizing her isolation from the rest of the Cretan court. Idomeneo and Idamante wear costumes of no particular period, just shades of black, enlivened with silver embroidery. The crowds here are covered in simple black, with tricorn hats. The soldiers look Roman, not Greek, but that's OK, opera isn't history. The crowds appear and exit like a Greek chorus. They don't need to be "doing" anything but sing.

But look how Neptune makes his mark!  Just a faint portrait of him on the backdrop, but thunder, dark chords in the music, Elettra  writhing on the ground, voluminous sleeves waving, like black waves. Then the chous appears, a mass of black, faces masked in white, arms raised. The fake waves move up and down and Idomeneo stumbles in and sings his glorious recitative.

When Ilia sings her "breeze" aria, white muslin curtains billow from the wings. On the film, extra cutrtains are superimposed on her image, buit it's not necessary, the idea of open seas and skies is already present in the simplicity of the staging.

When the people rise up, Neptune;''s Priest is a huge, imposing fellow, all black, with flowing white locks down to his waist - the idea of billowing clouds, foam on waves again. He's the God's represenatation as well as representative. How austere, yet how effective. The crowd now are in basic late 18th century costume, but black and masked. Neptune's face appears again on the backdrop. Idomeneo faces his god face to face now, it feels powerful, like a confrontation. So when the god's voice booms out, it makes emotional sense.

Do try and get this Drottningholm Idomeneo DVD if you can, because its' an excellent performance (and in Italian thank goodness, opera in translation is rarely right).  It's also worth getting because it shows how simple period performance could be, and surprisingly modern. What is "traditional" after all, but a theoretical construct?
 
COMING LATER : Full review of Glyndebourne Don Giovanni, I don't do superficial so it takes longer. Haha!

No more music at the V&A ?

London's V&A Museum is closing the gallery displaying its collection of musical instruments. Other galleries are being expanded, but musical instruments don't seem to rate priority. But musical instruments are objects of great craftsmanship, even though their true beauty is only revealed when they're heard.

In any museum, what's on display is only a small fraction of what's in storage. One of the great things about the V&A collections is that they've been available for research : some objects need to be studied in much greater detail than possible in a glass case. The Music Gallery at the V&A has been open mainly by appointment for some time, and the general public doesn't know what it's missing. So in theory, it's a good idea to shift music out of central London to the Horniman Museum way out in SE23.

The Horniman holds by far the biggest collection of musical instruments in the country, so it makes sense to concentrate resources in one place where specialist curators can care for them. Violins, for example, need to be played to stay "alive". In Berlin at the musical instruments museum next to the Philharmonie there are dedicted staff whose job is to tune and play magnificent instruments, the like of which most performers can only dream of. In Oxford, at the Ashmolean, there's the famous "Messiah" Stradivarius, so named because it was kept as a curio, so its sound may or may not have come.

But why should museum pieces be treated as museum pieces? Serious music scholars would head for the Horniman anyway. But what about ordinary people? The warm veneers on these instruments are sensual and tactile for they were made to entice a player to give of his best. Many are richly ornamented with inlays of ivory, exotic woods, and gildings of gold. As design concepts, they're formidable too. How does a master craftsman turn a flat plank of wood into something so beautifully curved that it resonates with a distinctive, individual personality of its own? Often the simpler, plainer instruments have the best sound because effort goes into making them fulfil their purpose as vehicles for music rather than rich men's toys. Indeed, there's a concept that the ideal design combines form and function. Many other objects in the V&A collections don't, thanks to taste in the Victorian age when the museum was founded.

Musical instruments don't reveal their beauties to ordinary eyes. Howe many people know how the 18th century hurdy-gurdies at the V&A should sound? Or why early violins and violas have 20 or more strings, some of which aren't played but exist to add resonance? And how did keyboards evolve, responding to and influencing musical invention ? Even people who don't listen to music can get inspired if they realize what wonders of engineering these instruments can be.

The past isn't musty or dusty. There are human stories behind these instruments, which can tell us about our past. England was once a major centre for viols and guitars, so these objects illustrate the historic trade between England and Iberia. What's more, because instruments serve a purpose, they're constantly being developed to improve the music they can make. "Industrial" design before the term was created.

Perhaps most of the tourists who go to the V&A only want to see famous things with an inbuilt Wow factor. Musical instruments are never going to have the appeal of Tipoo Sultan's tiger devouring an Englishman, or the rooms of Italian marble sculpture, or even Samurai armour. But they are an important part of our heritage, nonetheless, and particularly of a design heritage which isn't confined to music or musicians.

More so, perhaps than even the Theatre and Performance galleries, which are interesting, but by nature, contain emphemera like playbills etc. which were never meant to be art

Once there used to be a gallery of ironwork at the V&A. I haven't looked for it for years but it was a striking, if unsexy collection. Things like that get pushed aside by the need to raise visitor numbers and make museums palatable to sightseers and daytrippers. Even at the Ashmolean in Oxford, the wonderful refurbishment is marred if you know that many of the great items have been relegated to storerooms. All museums hold more than they display, for good reasons, but the general trend towards "visitor friendly" is becoming too narrowly interpreted. Ultimately, a museum is a place of wonder and mystery, not just a backdrop for other acrivities.

The magic of the V&A, and the Ashmolean, the Pitt Rivers, and the British Museum is the thrill of discovering things you don't know. The Horniman will be a magnet for music people, but it won't draw the ordinary visitor who doesn't know what wonders may exist. "I don't want to spend a day looking at old pianos!" Perfectly valid observation. But old pianos, and old string and wind instruments and oddball items like glass harmonicas, can be fascinating if presented well.

There will still be music at the V&A as some items are being retained, but they'll be shown in the context of other collections, for example baroque artefacts.

PLEASE see what I've written abut the V&A Baroque Magnificence Exhibition HERE (and related posts), and the Sacred Made Real Exhibition HERE at the National Gallery (the show's still on). Although this is primarily a music site, there's lots on visual arts and design. Including Baroque in China and Japan. And HERE is the Ashmolean article.

The Sacred made Real - No muzak!

The Sacred made Real at the National Gallery was an exhibition I wanted to escape because the subject matter is distressing. But I'm glad I finally confronted my fears. It's shattering, alright, but shattering in a compellingly positive way.

The fact is that most people in this world aren't Spanish Catholics, far less Christian at all, so it's valid to ask "What's in this for me?" But human suffering is universal and many people, religious or not, wonder what's the point of life. "The Sacred made Real" is for those who want to get past the incessant, frantic mental muzak of society and enter a quieter spiritual place. This exhibition, frightening as it is, is therapeutic, because it opens out a world far beyond ourselves and venal concerns.

The hyper-realism in these sculptures is meant to shock. 3D is more personal than any painting can ever be. The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception (attr Juan Martínez Montañés c 1628) upstages the famous Velásquez beside it. As you enter, your eyes are drawn to this glorious, golden Madonna, and you revel in the beauty of its detail. She's ecstatic because she knows Jesus is coming into the world. Then you see a disembodied head. It's John the Baptist, decapitated for spreading the news. Only when you look from the back, the horror hits you. There in realistic, photographic detail is his severed throat, blood vessels and bones protruding.

These sculptures weren't carved as decoration They're supposed to jolt you out of any sense of complacency, forcing you to think about their meaning. They're created to provoke an extreme response, but one which lifts you out of mundane cliché. If it's hard to look at these images of suffering, how much more horrible it must be to experience them? And why did John, Jesus and generations of martyrs suffer willingly for their faith?

These sculptures are rarely seen because normally they live in churches. Some, like the Dead Christ (1625-30, Gregorio Fernández), lie in tabernacles where the devout can contemplate, but others are placed high above altars. Their mysteries aren't revealed: which makes them all the more elusive. This exhibition is unique because it allows us to engage with them up close. We may never get the same opportunity again, even if we go to the churches they inhabit.

The hyper-realism is disturbing because no veil of propriety is drawn over them. St Francis of Assisi is famous for being so humble he can talk to birds. It's a surprise how small his statue (Pedro de Mena 1628-88) is, because the detail is amazing: the very textures of his roughly woven garment are depicted, so you can feel what it means to take a vow of poverty. The textures flow so well over the folds of his robe, that you're hypnotized. Then suddenly you see the wound in his side. St Francis welcomed the stigmata because he wanted to live out Christ's suffering, to come closer to the mystery of the Crucifixion. However stigmata appear, they do cause pain, but look at St Francis's eyes, limpid and moist as if he's alive, filled with compassion and love.

Why is St Francis so inspired? Shouldn't he be indignant that Christ suffered? But St Francis believed that God became man in order to experience the human condition and the pain that entails. The Resurrection shows that mankind will be saved. Suffering and death are a part of life, but can be endured because they will be overcome.

Hence the steely determination on the face of St Mary Magdelene meditating on the Crucifixion (Pedro de Mena 1664). She's wearing a robe which looks like it's woven from reeds. It's so carefully carved it's tactile, and for a reason: you're supposed to imagine why a pretty girl would want to suffer like that. Frail as she is, she holds the crucifix as if she's clinging to it for dear life. and you realize, it "is" the reason for her life. The robe is held together with delicate ropes, each thread finely carved. They look as if they might break at any time, but we know they're carved of solid wood. So the statue is saying, what looks weak is supported by a force greater than you'd expect.

Despite the realism, these painting and sculptures are surreal. The glow on the faces of Mary and the saints isn't ordinary but it's sublime light, Urlicht, that comes from a source that doesn't exist in mundane nature. They look upwards, towards something no-one can see. So you have to think, and imagine. You're engaged, not passive. In the film, outside the exhibition, the curator Xavier Bray comments on Velásquez's Christ after the Flagellation. It looks straightforward, but follow the eyes of the observer. He's looking behind Jesus, at his back, to the wounds we cannot see. The flat painting becomes four dimensional, when you engage your mind.

These objects are more than "art". Gregorio Fernández prepared himself before sculpting by prayer and fasting, and there's no doubt that for others - and their audiences - the works were a doorway to heightened spiritual experience. The statues of St Ignatius Loyola, St Bernard of Clairvaux and St Bruno depict them almost as photographic images so that we see them clearly as normal human beings, transfixed by the mysteries they're contemplating. They're not idols, nor even icons but a way of helping other ordinary people to connect to the amazing ideas behind them.

Kings and magnates want their portraits to make them look good. These images, however, show the saints warts and all, ugly old men whose voluminous garments probably weren't ever washed. Yet they're beautiful because their sprituality mnakes them glow.

Watch the video - photographs just don't come near! Click to make it full screen. Better still, get to this exhibition before it ends 24th January. Some of these things may never be seen like this again. If you like Sacred Made Real, you'll maybe like my other posts UNIQUE TO THIS SITE like those on  Japanese baroque. (and all my 20 plus posts on MACAU, Jesuits in Asia etc.