Dangerous Liaisons - Dance and Music - OAE Lully Rameau

Dangerous Liaisions with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.   Joined by  Les Corps Éloquents (Hubert Hazebrouq, choreographer, Irène Feste and Romain Arreghini, the OAE surpoassed even their own high standards, demonstating the link between music and dance in the French baroque. More than 40 extracts, primarily from Lully and Rameau, were chosen to form a highly original compilation, unfolding in thematic sequence : Idyllic Delight, Seduction, a Ballet des Fleurs, Vexation, Loss and Despair, Frolics and Mischief, with Reconciliation, the happy ending.   It's quite an achievement to put together more than 40 disparate extracts so they flow together naturally, yet with much variety. Like Le Concert Royal de la Nuit, (more here) this cohered well, an excellent summary of style and content.   Much admiration is due to  the OAE's Principal Flute Lisa Beznosiuk, who curated this with the support of an OAE team and Hubert Hazebroucq, who choreographed the dancing in period style.  This was also an exercise in French declamatory song style, with period (not modern) pronunciation, so credit is due, too, to soloists Anna Dennis and Nick Pritchard.  Conducted by John Butt, the OAE were in vivacious form : a delightful two and a half hours which passed all too quickly.

Like a prologue to a drama, the OAE began with Lully's Overture from Le Triomphe de L'Amour , followed by six miniatures, four from Lully's Thésée (1675)   "Aimons tout nous y convie, on aime ici sans danger".  Notice the archaic language, which did mater, since it complemented the stylized, idealized sentiments in the text, and in this context reminded us that the world of the baroque needs to be understood on its own terms. Thus the dancing, very different to what we take for granted today.  Like the art of fencing, dance prepared young noblemen with skills much needed in Court cicrles : physical fitness, mental discipline, alertness to strategy and form and an awareness of elegant presentation.  Thus the stances - hands and feet held at angles, foot positions which would have developed formidable muscles, enabling the dancer to control his position until he was ready to execute swift, decisive changes.  The formal patterns of dance also reflected concepts of social and cosmic order, the individual functioning as part of an emsemble.

Hazebroucq's choreography is based on extensive archival research but also on the relationship between dance and music, so fundamental to the baroque aesthetic.  Lully didn't conduct with a staff for nothing : he was (literally) beating time, creating a percussive foundation for music that was made to be moved to.  Hence the vigorous rhythms and exuberance, at times reminiscent of military marches and fanfares. Period instruments pack an earthy punch, horns and percusssion evoking  instruments  from even more archaic times, complementing the baroque fascination with classical antiquity.  The stringed instruments, plucked or bowed, added variety and character, sometimes providing continuo, or embarking on flights of inventiveness.  Seeing the dancers move in close relation to the music enhanced understanding of the musical logic. 
Thoughtfully, this Liaisons Dangereuses (like the novel that is told in letters, not narrative), interleaved an extract from Lully's Les Noces de Village (1663),between the pieces from Lully's Thésée. Philinte and Climene are idealized shepherd and shepherdess, more personable than  the more stylised, abstract evocations of love in Thésée. This also served to show that court dance, even when inspired by pastoral fantasy, was not folk dance but far more sophisticated.  The second section, "Seduction",  combined extracts from André Campra's L'Europe Galante (1697) and Lully's Le Bourgeois Genthilhomme (1670),, the vaguely "Spanish" allusions adding exotic spice, to the dancing as much as to the music.   In the Interlude, a "Ballet des Fleurs" , the dancers enacted an allegory in which three figures interact as lovers and rivals, eventually finding reconciliation. This is an allegory in music, too, combining Gavottes and Airs sourced from Rameau's Les Indes Galantes and Lully's Atys (1676), allowing the dancers ample room for elegant, intricate pattterns of movement.  The section "Vexation" was based on Lully's Armide (1686), where the sorceress Armide tries to seduce Renaud.   Anna Dennis was particularly impressive in this splendid role with Nick Pritchard her foil,  dancers in black, the orchestra conjuring up a storm..

The section "Loss and Despair" began with the Prelude from Charpentier's Orphée descendant aux enfers (1684) setting the scene.  An extract from Lully's Ballet royal de la Naissance de Venus (1665)  prepared the way for Orpheus "Tu ne la pendras point, hélas, pour me le rendre"  and Proserpine's "Courage Orphée, étale ici les plus grands charmes", also from Charpentier's La descent d'Orphee aux Enfers depict the Underworld. But love itself does not die. Venus (Anna Dennis) sang "Amiable Vainqueur" from Campra's Hésione (1700), neatly connecting the Orpheus legend with a tragédie en musique  wth characters from other parts of classicl mythology.  "Love that is strong enough can "Désarmer le Dieu de la Guerre: le Dieu de la Tonnere" evoked by the wind machines, crashes of percussion and baleful brass in the orchestra.   After the tumult, fantasy and fun.  From Rameau's Platée (1745) a satire, and a parody from Jean-Joseph Mouret's Les Amours de Ragonde (1714) . In the former, the gods squabble, causing invertebrates and mortals to fall in unrequited love. In the latter, couples end up mismatched. Colin, who ends up wed to his would be mother in law sings mock peasant dialect "Je ne songeons qu'uà bien aimer, je rougirions d'être volage".  Warped humour, the opposite of idealized courtly love, but an opportunity to see the dancers imitate folksy jigs and "exotic" dances.  But all is resolved in the final tableau, Reconciliation.  Eglé and Mercury  sort out their differences in a dialogue from Rameau's Les Fêtes d'Hébé (1739) and Calatée, Mercure, Zoroaster and Amelite sort out theirs in Rameau's Zoroastre (1739).
Please also see

Rameau  Zaïs HERE. (Anna Dennis, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Rameau Pygmalion and Anacreon danced HERE (OAE, danced by Les Paisirs des Nations),
Rousseau Le Devin de Village HERE (Hubert Hazebrouque, choreographer)
and much else

Der Rosenkavalier, with a twist - Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment back at the Queen Elizabeth Hall tomorrow (17/5) with Der Rosenkavalier, but with a twist. Not the opera but the film suite.  What film suite ? Richard Strauss wrote for the movies ? Yes !  In 1926, Robert Wiene, who had directed The Cabinett of Dr. Caligari , made a version of Der Rosenkavalier with the enthusiastic support of Richard Strauss himself.   Dr. Caligari  pioneered the Expressionist aesthetic.And   there was Richard Strauss, if not quite in the vanguard, certainly sympathetic.  This should come as no surprise, since he wrote Salomé. Elektra and Die Frau ohne Schatten. Nuts to the notion that Strauss was sugar and cream.  Wiene’s film was screened at the Dresden Opera House, where the original opera itself had premiered fifteen years before, underlining the connection between opera and the new art form of cinema.  Wiene's Der Rosenkavalier wasn't an "opera movie" in any modern sense of the word. It wasn't a film of the opera but a work of art in itself, with the opera as starting point.  Works of art exist for themselves : there's no law that they have to set originals as given, any more than that art should be history.  Please also see my article from 2012, Gay Salomé the 1923 silent movie based on the Salomé storyn that inspired not only Strauss but many others. 

The plot loosely follows the novel from which Hugo von Hofmannsthal  derived the libretto, with extra scenes like the battlefield on which the Feldmarschall rides to victory and an opera bouffe in a small theatre, where the principals watch their dilemma being acted out. Obviously, the music for the opera would not fit. In any case, what would be the point in a silent movie? Instead Strauss wrote a new soundtrack, based on an orchestra of 17 parts, which mixed extracts from the opera with snippets from  other works  including Arabella, Burleske, Till Eulenspeigel and  Also sprach Zarathustra. 

He  threw in bits of Wagner and Johann Strauss for further effect. Strauss himself conducted the blend live while the movie screened. How would today's opera snobs react?  They take themselves too seriously, methinks, because the Silent Rosenkavalier is a heady cocktail of good film and fun. It captures the savage satire while dressing it up with visuals so frothy they border on excess. This in itself is a dig at the materialistic culture that values frills, yet turns fresh young women into commodities in a cynical marriage marketplace. Swoon at the wigs and acres of lace, but this is no costume drama.

 

The technical film values are very high, as one would expect from the director of Dr Caligari (full download here) and Genuine the Vampire (more here). Scenes are carefully planned so they seem like tableaux in some elegant object of art, designed to distract from the grubbiness around it.  The Marschallin's boudoir suffocates in luxury: one imagines that any man kept like this would lose his masculinity. For all her wealth, the lady isn't happy. She sighs and uses exaggerated gestures and poses: Wiene is satirizing popular theatrical excess. Baron Ochs wears embroidered silks but is a boor. He somersaults, arms and legs akimbo like a broken puppet. Later, when Octavian challenges him to a duel, he collapses  though he's barely been scratched. The camera pans close up on his face and then his mouth, wide as a grotesque sculpture. We can almost hear the screaming.

The scenes where the Men of Property and their lawyers work out the marriage contract are brilliantly done. Backgrounds dissolve into darkness, so the rococco filigree of the costumes and wigs frame faces whose features twist in angular contortion. Outside, in the garden,
gigantic gryphons five metres high tower over the party goers. In contrast, the actress who plays Sophie expresses her personality with
great sensitivity. Sometimes she looks like a nine year old, too naive to take in what's happening. Her jutting chin and turned up nose indicate her petulance.The rich folk cram into a tiny theatre in the Mehlmarkt to watch a play about "the Proud Father and his humiliation",
narrated in rhyming folk poetry. The Marschallin plans a masked ball. Great crowd scenes. Mystery letters direct Octavian and the Field
Marshal (straight from the battle) to meet a woman in the grotto of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt. The last reel of the film is missing but the
inconclusive ending isn't a problem. We know what's going to happen. The last frame shows the little black boy, with his plumed turban,
drawing a curtain and gesturing silence. 

 

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is conducted by Geoffrey Paterson with Thomas Kemp as arrtistic director and Charlotte Beament, who will be singing Strauss songs.   The South Bank has been doing silent movies with sound for decades (Think Carl Davis) but this time the music is autentic original and there's no film, as such.  Use your imagination or watch the silent movie, which has been screened several times in recent years.  I wrote my article Rosenkavalier bei Caligari in 2014. But the OAE performance should make us think, about Strauss, and his interests in the avant garde and the idea of film as art form.  Me ? I'll be at St John's Smith Square for  Charpentier Histoires sacrées with Ensemble Correspondances, directed by Sébastien Daucé and Vincent Huguet.

Donizetti Les Martyrs - Opera Rara next week

Opera Rara presents Donizetti's Les Martyrs (READ MY REVIEW HERE)  at the Royal Festival Hall, London on 4/11. Mark Elder conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Any Opera Rara production is an occasion : serious bel canto fans would have booked for this as soon as tickets went on sale (especially since Bryan Hymel was originally scheduled to sing the the heroic Polyeucte. Michael Spyres stepped in a while ago : he's very good, too. Joyce El-Khoury sings his wife Pauline. Event of the year, for many

Opera Rara's Les Martyrs  would also be a wise choice for anyone planning to go to Glyndebourne's 2015 Donizetti Poliuto. Poliuto was written for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1838 but promptly banned by the King of Sicily, who objected to the depiction in popular theatres of a subject from Christian history.  Poliuto (aka Polyeucte, or Polyeuctus) was a third century Roman who converted to Christianity and was beheaded as a martyr in Armenia. Relatively little is known about the saint, so the opera treats the story as drama. The libretto in both operas was based on a play by Corneille, written two hundred years previously. French audiences could cope with religious subjects being treated as drama

The part of Poliuto was written for Adolphe Nourrit, Rossini's favourite, but his voice had deteroirated.  In despair, he jumped out of a hotel window and died, aged only 37. Donizetti, however, decided to rewrite the opera for Paris, the then pinnacle of operatic sophistication.  Poliuto then became Les Martyrs, incorporating most of the original with an elaborate new ballet score, extending the overture and choruses, and adding flamboyant new solos for the lead tenor.  A neat way to learn the difference between Italian and French grand opera.  Although Les Martyrs is not unknown (there are several recordings), Opera Rara will be using a new critical edition by Dr. Flora Willson of King’s College, Cambridge, which restores the opera’s original French text (Eugene Scribe)  and reinstates numerous musical passages that have not been heard since its first performance.in 1840. 

In true Opera Rara tradition, the company will record the opera in the studio in the week prior to the performance, marking its 23rd complete opera release by Donizetti to date.,Joyce El-Khoury (Pauline), who made her recording debut with Opera Rara with Donizetti’s Belisario in 2012, was recently nominated in the Young Singer category of the 2014 International Opera Awards. She is joined by Michael Spyres (Polyeucte), David Kempster (Sévère) and Wynne Evans (Néarque) who make their Opera Rara debuts with the recording and performance of Les Martyrs. Also featured in the cast are Brindley Sherratt (Félix) and Clive Bayley (Callisthènes), who have both previously worked with the company. (photo credit Russell Duncan).

The brain-child of Patric Schmid and Don White, Opera Rara has been in the business of bringing back forgotten operatic repertoire since its conception in the early 1970’s. The operas of Donizetti in particular continue to remain a core focus, with the company celebrating its 50th complete opera recording recently with the release of his opéra-comique Rita. Watch out for the forthcoming recording, but prepare by experiencing Les Martyrs live next week !