Platée, Semperoper Dresden, 16 April 2019

Semperoper

Images: Semperoper Dresden/Ludwig Olah
Platée (Philippe Talbot), La Folie (Inga Kalna)

Platée – Philippe Talbot

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.

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.

Les Arts Florissants/Agnew: Monteverdi, First Book of Madrigals, etc., 13 October 2011

Union Chapel

Monteverdi – Lapidabant Stephanum
Vecchi – Ardo sì, ma non t’amo
Riposta: Arda e gela à tua voglia
Monteverdi – Quando sperai del mio servir mercede
Raggi dov’e’l moi bene
Ingegneri – Ardo sì, ma non t’amo
Ardi e gela à tua voglia
Marenzio – A che tormi il ben moi
Questa ordi il laccio
Monteverdi – Ardo sì, ma non t’amo
Ardi e gela a tua voglia
Arsi e alsi a mia voglia
Madrigals: Book One


Les Arts Florissants, under the directorship of Paul Agnew, are performing a complete cycle of Monteverdi madrigals across Europe between 2011 and 2014. This concert took in the first book but, given its relative brevity, offered a first half setting that collection, published in 1587, in historical context. And so, we heard the first piece from Monteverdi’s first publication, ‘Lapidabant Stephanum’ from the 1582 Sacrae cantiunculae tribus vocibus, followed by a brief spoken introduction from Agnew and other madrigals from 1583-7.

I think it might have taken me quite some time to guess the composer of that opening motet, beautifully written though it may be. The performance was not auspicious either: a little too delicate in sound, albeit with an unpleasant nasal quality intruding from time to time. The madrigals, however, were much more impressive in performance. A couple of settings by Orazio Vecchi opened, the first the first composition we know of Giovanni Battista Guarini’s ‘Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo’, which, according to Agnew, received no fewer than sixty-two settings. (Presumably then, there will be settings we have lost too.) It benefited from a fuller sound, unsurprisingly more dramatic too, with hints of the street, at times almost spat out, though the tenderness of the penultimate line (‘Perch’ho già sano il core’) was equally striking. ‘Ardi o gela a tua voglia’, also from Vecchi’s 1573 First Book of Madrigals, came in this context as an answer from womankind, excoriation of an unfaithful, merciless girl followed by the same concerning an unfaithful, shameless man. The final cadence was especially well handled, properly climactic.

Three pieces from Monteverdi’s First Book of Canzonette, all for three voices, followed. Perhaps I am reading too much into such an early work (published 1584), but ‘Canzonette d’amore’ already sounded more than a little erotic. ‘Quando sperai’ emerged as a study in male plangency, echoing the sad final stanza:

Così per sé far l’ape ogn’anno crede
Miser ail mele, e mai non lo possiede
Che altri le fura e toglie
Il dolce frutto e le sue care spoglie.

Others will always steal the sweet honey the bee thinks it is making for itself. ‘Raggi dov’è il mio bene’ permitted the women to respond in flighty fashion, though subtly so. If the vocal quality sounded more girlish than womanly, then that may well have been the intention.

Monteverdi’s teacher, Marc’Antonio Ingegneri, was featured with a couple of madrigals from his 1587 Fifth Book, the first another setting of ‘Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo’, both performances clearly relishing the composer’s strikingly beautiful harmonies (perhaps more striking than his word-setting). Two madrigals from Luca Marenzio’s Book Four displayed courtliness (‘A che tormi il ben mio’) and a ‘busy-ness’ that truly seemed to presage Monteverdi (‘Questa ordì il laccio’). Finally in the first half, we had a sneak preview, as it were, of the final three madrigals from Monteverdi’s collection, beginning with his setting of ‘Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo’: animated, undeniably human as well as humanist. The post-Vecchi dramatist was already to the fore in the other two settings, both of Tasso.

Even the opening madrigal of Monteverdi’s First Book, ‘Ch’ami la vita mia nel tuo bel nome’, seemed in itself a touching journey from life to death, the latter of course encompassing a multitude of sins – and pleasures. I was reminded of Raymond Leppard’s wonderful description of Dido and Aeneas as ‘Tristan und Isolde in a pint pot’. This was a smaller receptacle still, yet in its way as exquisite. Monteverdi’s later dramatic madrigals, though on a much larger scale than this, have a great deal more to say than most operas that succeed them. The struggle between love and ‘death’ also featured strongly in madrigals such as ‘A che tormi il ben mio’. ‘Baci soavi e cari’ received a delicate reading, whose clarity was such that one could readily have taken dictation of each line. Phyllis, the bane of madrigal singers and listeners worldwide, put in a couple of appearances, though the Highbury police sirens that followed quickly upon ‘Filli cara ed amata’ suggested she might be a little more interesting than previously suspected. The poignancy of ‘Poiché del mio dolore’ was touching indeed, likewise that of the heart-rending ‘Se nel partir da voi’, whose chromaticism almost tends to the Purcellian. I was also much taken with the freedom with which ‘Questa ordì il laccio’ was despatched. When the final three madrigals came around again, they sounded both familiar and changed. It was a pity that the very last, ‘Arsi ed alsi a mia voglia’ sounded somewhat hectic, impetuous even, almost throwaway. But on the whole, there had been a great deal to enjoy – and to learn. In that context, it is also worth welcoming such an intelligently written, informative booklet note from Andrew Stewart, his words taking in judiciously-selected historical and intellectual context as well as the work of Susan McClary. (One London hall recently hit rock bottom with a programme that said not a single word about the music of Mozart’s Haffner Symphony but nevertheless found the space to thank the Savoy Hotel for Claudio Abbado’s biography, artist representation clearly having moved on from the traditional agency model.)