Semperoper
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| Images: Semperoper Dresden/Ludwig Olah Platée (Philippe Talbot), La Folie (Inga Kalna) |
Cithéron, Satyr – Giorgio
Caoduro
Jupiter – Andreas Wolf
Junon – Ute Selbig
Mercure, Thespis – Mark
Milhofer
Momus – Sebastian Wartig
Thalie, Clarine – Iulia Maria
Dan
La Folie – Inga Klana
Amour – Tania Lorenzo
Two Menads – Katharina Flade,
Hyunduk Na
Rolando Villazón (director)
Harald Tor (set designs)
Susanne Hubrich (costumes)
Philippe Giraudeau
(choreography)
Davy Cunningham (lighting)
Kai Weßler (dramaturgy)
Dancers
Sächsische Staatsopernchor Dresden (chorus director: Cornelius Volke)
Säschsische Staatskapelle Dresden
Paul Agnew (conductor)
I did not ever think I should
live to hear the Staatskapelle Dresden play Rameau, let alone with such verve
and sensitivity, such vigour and style as here. Outside France, occasions are
still relatively rare to see Rameau’s operas staged: far rarer than they should
be for the pre-eminent opera composer of his age. In the present climate, to
hear them performed on modern instruments – let alone on modern instruments
that are not attempting, pointlessly, to sound as if they were ancient ones –
is a further, well-nigh insurmountable challenge. Bravo, then, not only to
Dresden’s Semperoper for staging Platée,
but for presenting it with such conviction, under Paul Agnew, himself by now something
of a veteran both in the title role and as conductor. Agnew’s direction proved not the least virtue of this evening, his tempi
judicious both in themselves and in relation to one another, a keen ear applied
to balances within the orchestra and between orchestra and stage. Rameau’s
woodwind solos in particular shone with all the ravishing beauty one might have
hoped for from these players. Warm yet incisive strings combined with expert
continuo (Gerd Amelung on harpsichord, Simon Kalbhenn on cello) and, just as
important, a fine cast and duly provocative production to have one think as
well as feel. This was the fourth performance in the run since the premiere
earlier this month: it seemed by now to have all the advantages of having ‘bedded
in’, without retreat into the over-familiarity (and under-rehearsal) of ‘repertoire’.
Rolando Villazón’s production
surprised me. Initially it seemed needlessly over the top, in danger of
collapsing into ‘punk Baroque’ cliché, but it soon became apparent that a keen,
playful mind was at work, playing with the strange, ornate parodies of this
singular ballet bouffon (or should
that be comédie lyrique)? The
Prologue takes place, with apparent incongruity, in a bar full of characters
who either are schoolchildren or, more likely, dressed as such. (Or is it a
drunken schoolroom? There may be no difference.) This is, after all, the
morning after the night before – something surely not lost on the first
audience at the Dauphin’s Versailles marriage festivities in 1745. (The 1749 version was given here.) What ‘should’
be a Greek vineyard is – more or less – but with the additional insight,
criticism, call it what you will, that the gang of Thespis, Momus, Amour, and
Thalia are themselves acting as obstreperous teenagers. Their creation of the
drama to be set before us for their and our amusement has little empathy, will
mock gods and mortals alike, yet ultimately will serve the higher, comedic end
of reconciling Jupiter and Junon.
And so, the events at the foot
of Mount Cithaeron unfold, keenly aware of the highly unusual form this satire
is to take. Who are its objects? In a sense, everyone: perhaps including
Rameau, the great lyric tragedian, himself. And nothing is off bounds, sexually
or otherwise. Some members of the audience seemed more than a little
discomfited by Mercure’s use of an obvious bodily orifice for storage purposes,
but that was surely the point. Here one should be invited, even compelled, to
reconsider what might be taken for granted, not only about this opera, but
about opera more generally. Mark Milhofer’s twin assumption of Mercure and
Thespis was certainly not the least of the quicksilver joys and thrills of the
evening. But it was Philippe Talbot’s Platée, of course, who stood – and sang –
centre-stage, gloriously repulsive in what must surely be one of Rameau’s higher
haute-contre parts, originally taken
by Pierre de Jélyotte. Talbot captured the swamp-nymph en travestie’s absurdity – we feel less uncomfortable, perhaps,
given the Italian device of drag, highly unusual for French opera – in a keenly
observed performance whose every detail contributed to the greater whole.
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| Jupiter (Andreas Wolf) and Platée |
Another delightful incongruity
was provided by Inga Kalna’s Folie, her apparition again very much a star
apparition from another world (Italian opera, once again, but something beyond
that in the particular scheme at work here). Her coloratura thrilled yet also
warned. Why should we listen to her, apart from wanting to do so? Perhaps that
was enough. Other highlights included the performances of a darkly menacing,
yet not-too-menacing, Giorgio Caoduro (Cithéron), a properly narcissistic Jupiter
(Andreas Wolf), and a rich-toned Iulia Maria Dan (Thalie, Clarine). But the
company and the controlled riot in performance it wrought were the thing.
Opera, of whatever genre, is a curious thing. This Platée not only knew that; it played with that, rejoiced in it, and
asked us what we thought of it, and why. Its strangely ‘un-operatic’
interjections, verbal and musical, were both relished and reconciled, its
conventions likewise. The more one listened, the more one watched, the more –
and the less – one ‘understood’. Dance and song, voice and instruments, even comedy and tragedy: can they, should they, be separated? Such, after all, may be one of the ultimate lessons learned in and after the drunken schoolroom and/or children’s bar of the Prologue.
