Glyndebourne magic at home - Ravel L'enfant et les sortilèges

L'enfant et les sortilèges - Teapot (François Piolino) Child (Khatouna Gadelia) Chinese Cup (Elodie Méchain) Credit Simon Annand

 Glyndebourne at home, minus the garden. Champagne and strawberries optional. But a glorious chance to experience once more the magic of Ravel L'enfant et les sortilèges, in the Laurent Pelly production.  In L'enfant et les sortilèges, the world is seen through the eyes of a child, still full of wonder, too young to be locked into rigid assumptions : innocent, yet still  aware that there might be darker forces lurking just beyond.  This isn't an opera that can be approached literally, with the judgementalism that some adults might prefer.   Pelly, however, captures its elusive delicacy, where magical thinking co-exists with an awareness that harsh reality will eventually intrude, even on the pure in spirit.  "L'enfant et les sortilèges" said Pelly, "lasts about 45 minutes, but has the depth of an opera of three or four hours".This production's timeless, endlessly refreshing. What a joy it is to experience its freedom again via Glyndebourne streaming, especially in these times when it seems that the world seems bent on self destruction.

The combination of this L'enfant et les sortilèges, from 2012, with Pelly's much earlier L'heure espagnole underlines the freshness of Pelly's conception.  In  L'heure espagnole the adult figures are cynical, as inhuman and as inhumane as the clocks Torquemada surrounds himself with. Machines can be controlled to suit. Torquemada's a classic case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where process means more than goal, the need to regulate a mask for existential anxiety.  Concepción thinks she can escape by playing men off against each other, but she, too, is operating on clockwork. Everyone in  L'heure espagnole is trapped in an infernal machine they don't even recognise : no-one's happy, or innocent.

The 2012 Glyndebourne cast was brilliant - Stéphanie d'Oustrac and Kathleen Kim, for starters ! Altogether unforgettable !  Please see my original review from the premiere  and also my interview with Laurent Pelly.

Offenbach Le roi Carotte - perfect for post-truth politics

At the International Opera Awards this spring, Jacques Offenbach Le roi Carotte. and deservedly so. What a discovery!  Le roi Carotte is a wildly anarchic satire, whose message is only too relevant now, in our era of "post-truth" politics where demagogues and their followers think winning is everything. The production was a sensation at its premiere at the Opéra National de Lyon on 12 December 2015. It was broadcast on France Musique, French and German TV, the BBC, and elsewhere but in the UK it seems have have raised nary a ripple of interest.  Judging by the incomprehension with which Chabrier's L’Étoile was received in London this February (read more here) maybe one could conclude that London audiences don't get opéra bouffe, or they'd have realized that King Ouf's very name springs from the word "bouffe". In other words, puffed up, wicked, lively, as delicious as whipped creme.  

Offenbach's original, first heard in 1872, was an over the top extravaganza of 22 scenes, singing, dancing, music and comedy sketches, lasting more than six hours, which definitely wouldn't go down well with modern audiences.  Bouffe and operetta aren't quite the same thing. This new edition was prepared by Laurent Pelly, a man of the theatre who knows the genre extremely well, and indeed specializes in French theatre and opera. Remember his Ravel  L'enfant et les sortilèges at Glyndebourne?  Read an interview with Pelly here.  Pelly has directed a lot of Offenbach : La belle Hélène  Les conte's d'Hoffmann (twice) , La Périchole and La Duchesse de Gérolstein.  

Le roi Carotte is magnificent on its own terms, but a bit of background doesn't hurt. The Overture, for example, though it's pure Offenbach, has the panache of the military choruses in Gounod's Faust. This may be no accident, since going to war meant less to Goethe than it did to Gounod whose audiences gloried in Napoleon III and victories in the Crimea. When Le roi Carotte premiered, the irony would not have been lost on Offenbach's audiences, who only the previous year had witnessed the Prussian invasion and the Paris Commune.  In Le roi Carotte, the drunken student chorus is even more prominent, complete with staccato riffs to which beer mugs can be rhythmically beaten. Hedonism rules! But "Don't knock it" sing the chorus : it can all evaporate in an instant.  

Le roi Fridolin XXIV is broke and must marry Princess Cunégonde for her money.  There's a wonderful vignette, in which a crafty student, Robin-Lauron, plots to rip off Fridolin and his remaining assets (weapons).  Indeed, all the set pieces are full of character, sharply defined.  Robin-Lauron discovers Rosée-du-soir, princess of Moravia, who has been imprisoned for years by the witch Coloquinte  The pair sing a duet "Roule, petit boule" , so even if we don't have a clue why they're there, the scene is delightful.  The witch is tricked by greed into conjuring up Le roi Carotte..... 

Back in the palace, Cunégonde meets the stuffy courtiers. But who should march in but Le roi Carotte and his vegetable minions.  The court is horrified: the orchestra playing strange sounds that could come from Berlioz.  But Coloquinte the witch "conducts" from above, and the court fall over in mindless adulation.  "A bas Fridolin!"  the chorus cries. The Carrot is King.  Fridolin calls on his forebears. Ghostly knights in armour march in, singing a parody of Gounod's Gloire immortelle de nos aïeux.  "How dare you invoke your ancestors", they scold, "roi sans vertu qui les bravais jadis".  Fridolin consults a magician, Kiribibi, who sings an aria about politics, Talleyrand and a fickle public.  Fridolin and his friends are magicked of to Pompeii, "la ville de la morte" . More spooky music, more references to Faust.  Like the hedonistic students, the citizens of Pompeii sing of bread and wine. Fridolin and his companions con the Pompeiians  by invoking railway trains!  I kid you not, this is in the score and libretto  Growling ostinato, high flutes suggesting wind, whistles and speed. "La locomotive, coursier infernale, encore captive, s'ébrante le signale". The railway symbolized progress : Berlioz and Heine wrote about them, too.  The music is so vivid that the staging doesn't need to show trains. Instead a depiction of Vesuvius is wheeled in, spouting smoke.  Like a locomotive.....

Meanwhile back in the palace le roi Carotte is besieged by sycophants and salesmen - from Persia no less - but being down to earth, he prefers soup to silks.  Fridolin and Cunégonde meet. "Moi! Toi?  haha haha " they duet, the orchestra laughing along.  Coloquinte appears and sends Fridolin, Robin-Lauron and Rosée-du-soir underground in puffs of smoke, the journey described by the orchestra, playing in darkness. Here, insects rule.  "Gloria nobis", they sing as they educate Fridolin and friends about their underworld. The bugs swarm upwards.  Coloquinte can't cope.  Le roi Carotte and his radish knights get sick.  "Ça,  Le Stratège ", to use bugs to weaken veg! Crops fail, prices rise and the populace in the market place revolt.  At last they call the king a carrot. Kiribibi stands astride a barricade of vegetable crates and sings of Liberty.  The people recognize the sounds of an approaching army.   Fridolin is restored. Le roi carotte doesn't go to the guillotine. He's shredded in a vegetable press.

An exceptional opera, an exceptional production and a very good cast, details here.  Chances are it will never come to the UK, but let's hope it will be appreciated on DVD.

Triomphe! Meyerbeer Robert le diable, review, Royal Opera House

Why was Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable an overwhelming success in its time ? The Royal Opera House production suggests why: it's a cracking good show! Extreme singing, testing the limits of vocal endurance,  and extreme drama. Robert le Diable is Faust, after all, not history, and here its spirit is captured by audacious but well-informed staging. Listen with an open mind and heart and imagine how audiences in Meyerbeer's time might have imagined the madness and magic that is Robert le diable.

Bryan Hymel is outstanding, singing the difficult, unusual part with exceptionally fluid, lyrical singing, the cruel tessitura negotiated with such strong technique that we hear the part, not the effort. He isn't simply displaying vocal skill, but infusing the part with greater psychological depth than  the text itself suggests. That is true artistry. Opera is not singing alone, it is drama with music at its heart.  The extremes Meyerbeer writes into the vocal line express Robert's tortured soul: Hymel makes them ring with emotional conviction. In the duet "Mon coeur s'élance et palpite",  he almost steals the show though Isabelle has the killer high notes. Many other exquisite moments, like the Act Four "du magique rameau". Hymel, still only 33, is a voice to cherish.

The parts of Alice and Isabella are tours de force. Alice is a maid from Normandy, as the orchestra tells us with  vaguely folk melodies. Although she carries a letter from Robert's mother she is not Micaëla whose love for Don José is tainted with possessiveness.  Meyerbeer's audiences would have no trouble identifying Alice with Joan of Arc, another girl from Normandy who fought against all odds.  Marina Poplavskaya's Alice is no bimbette, but a heroine worthy of Jeanne d'Arc herself.

Poplavskaya's voice soars clear over the orchestra in the tricky early parts of the opera. But it's in her confrontation with Bertram that she shows the intelligence she brings to the characterization.  Poplavskaya reaches the horrendously high notes with clarity. Alice is direct, she doesn't make a fuss, so this intense portrayal is psychologically true. Yet it also refects the recurrent staccato in the music, and the thrusting, stabbing passages in the orchestra. The mock medieval battle in the text is outclassed  by the cosmic battle for Robert's soul. Poplavskaya's Alice is lithe and energetic, for she's a swordsman duelling against death.

Isabella's two biggest arias, "Idole de ma vie" and "Robert, toi que je t'aime" define the word "show stopper". Done well, the audience is stunned and the action stops until applause subsides. That alone can make good theatre.  In  the Cavatina, the word "Grâce" is repeated in elaborate variations. Then the orchestra chimes in, provoking even greater feats of vocal gymnastics.  You're left gasping. Patrizia Ciofi received much applause for standing in at the last moment. She's very experienced, having first taken the role more than ten years ago.  Perhaps she'll  slip back into gear as the run continues.  She's excellent, but this is a role that needs heart shatteringly astonishing singing.

John Relyea sings Bertram's set piece arias at the end of Act Four impressively but he is no pantomime villain.  Tellingly, he sings details like the recurrent "mon fils, mon fils" with gruff tenderness. He wants Robert because Robert is his son.  Relyea's subtlety suggests why Bertram was once loved by the saintly Rosalie, Robert's mother. While Meyerbeer milked the plot for melodrama, there's room in the music for the depth Relyea brings to it.

Since many people know nothing of Meyerbeer other than Wagner's slander, our modern approach to Meyerbeer is distorted.  Wagner was such a complex person that it's nonsense to take a simplistic view of the Wagner/Meyerbeer relationship.  Alberich-like, Wagner had to attack Meyerbeer to  hide how much he owed him.  It's a classic troll tactic. No wonder Wagner understood the Niebelung mind. If Meyerbeer's use of the orchestra seems over the top to us, it's because we are thinking in Wagnerian terms. Meyerbeer extends his characterizations with motives that run through the opera like a thread - drinking songs, marches, Norman folk songs. Develop these further and call them Leitmotivs.  He also uses the orchestra sparingly - harps around Isabella's angelic singing, brooding winds and brass around Bertram.  The large orchestral flourishes are deftly done, and move the action forward, without overpowering - you want to hear those clear high notes shine.
 
If we free ourselves of Wagner snobbery, we can appreciate Robert le Diable's true place in music history. Its obvious antecedent is Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz and its direct descendant Berlioz The Damnation of Faust.  All derive form the High Romantic fascination with Gothic fantasy and the occult.  Meyerbeer may not be "modern" taste but that reflects on our awareness of period opera. Even Bach was largely forgotten until Mendelssohn championed his music.  Perhaps the shadow of Wagner is so strong that we don't let ourselves enjoy Meyerbeer because we're too worried about what others might think.

We should bear this background in mind when assessing this Royal Opera House production, directed by Laurent Pelly with designs by Chantal Thomas. This would go a long way towards a reasessment of Meyerbeer because it is very well researched and erudite. The ballet, where the ghosts of dead nuns are seem rising from their graves, is based almost exactly on the original Paris designs. The etchings we see are also based on authentic period imagery.  The huge revolving mountain that dominates the stage could come straight out of a Gothic painting or novel. To 19th century people, wild landscapes represented fear and superhuman forces. Think the Wolf's Glen in Der Freischütz.

Robert le Diable is melodrama, by no means po-faced. This staging is colourful because the music is colourful.  How Meyerbeer's audiences must have thrilled to the sight of semi-naked nuns dancing lustfully. They would have enjoyed mock medieval pgeantry without worrying too much whether it was authentic.  Our modern obssession with period-specific staging meant nothing to audiences who were used to seeing zany mixtures of period and style. Ironically, this is a much more authentic staging than many realise. In many ways, we are less open to the art of imagination now than our forebears were once. Why shouldn't we have as much fun as they did?  Pelly and Thomas are giving us a chance to see the opera in period context. We should value the chance to see this opera done in this way because chances are we won't get many opportunities since it's not at all an easy work to stage.
This ROH production is being recorded and filmed. BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting an audio version on Saturday 15th December (link here).

Longer version of this review with full cast list in Opera Today Go to Opera Today for a full download of the 1985 production and libretto

photos :  Bill Cooper, Royal Opera House, details embedded

Meyerbeer Robert le Diable - who's behind it

Much has been made of the cast changes at the Royal Opera House Meyerbeer Robert le diable that starts Thursday. It's easy to make a fuss if you don't actually know what's involved.  But listen to the music - it's fiendishly difficult, created to shock and awe. The tessitura in most parts lies so high that few singers are conmfortable in the range or have the stamina to stick it out for hours, That's another reason why ballet features - it takes the pressure off the singers and gives them time to rest.  Some of these arias are tour de force killers, easier to pull off in concert performance than in full staging.

When we hear it at the ROH, we should bear in mind how rare it is to hear music of this type. We are fortunate. Bryan Hymel will be singing the title role. He was specially chosen because he's a high lyric tenor, with a clear, refined top and elegant ping.  Hymel sang Enée in Berlioz Les Troyens  with great subtlety. Although Enée is a hero, he's not butch but filled with human conflict. Hymel's interpretation was right for the part, a truly refreshing approach.  Please see my review of Les Troyens live  and my analysis of the broadcast ). Hymel also impressed greatly as the Prince in the ROH Rusalka, another of his signature roles, with which he shot to fame. Read about that Rusalka here and why Dvořák may have chosen that voice type here, and read my interview with Hymel in February 2012. It's vital to understand the voice type and its relationship to the genre. We're used to heavier Italianate tenors in the Verdi manner, and to German Heldentenors, but the French style is different and more refined. It has to be heard on its own terms. Since there's a revival in 19th century French opera, we need to accustom our ears to voice styles like this.

John Relyea is singing Bertram. Several years ago Relyea told me “I find villains in general to be great fun to do. I suppose you can say that they are much more direct in the sense that they don’t have the same sort of inner conflicts that you get with “normal” characters and heroes. A lot of the bass repertoire is of course the “patriach” type, kings, priests, sympathetic charismatic roles whose inner worlds are developed from humanity and compassion. Villains' aims and goals are unwavering, most of the time and on a certain level that’s easy, but I like the clarity of a villain’s mind and the way they focus so firmly on objectives. It gives you a line to follow."

Patrizia Ciofi has been singing Isabelle since the 1990's, so she's a wise choice for the Royal Opera House. Hear her in the first four performances and in the video below (Paris 2000).  Marina Poplavskaya is singing Alice and Jean-François Borras is singing Raimbout. It's a strong cast, better than we might deserve, I sometimes think. .The director is Laurent Pelly, who specializes in French  repertoire.   Pelly's very sharp, passionately intense about what he does. Read here what he's said about Ravel L'enfant et les sortilèges for Glyndebourne. HERE is a link to a clip where he talks about the production. Get a glimpse of the production - quite amazing. "C'est un ouvrage très particulaire, très difficile, très longue, très mystérieux ....un blockbuster".

Tomorrow a survey of Robert le Diables of the past and a download.

Glyndebourne Ravishing Ravel Double Bill

Surrealist fantasy with wit and style!  Ravel Double Bill at Glyndebourne,: L'heure espagnole and L'enfant et les sortilèges mixes charm, intelligence and nightmare.The audience applauded the scenery, but this time the praise was sincere. Ravel's music and ideas come alive. I'm tempted to say "beyond our wildest dreams", because dreams release the creative imagination. Ravel begins  L'enfant et les sortilèges with strange mock-orientalism, to emphasize the alien nature of what is to come. The child (Khatouna Gadelia) throws a tantrum, reflected in the stamping ostinato in the music, and the repetive, angular  vocal line. "Méchant! Méchant! Méchant!". Table, chair and Maman's skirts loom menacingly, overwhelming the child. This is what it feels to be little, dwarfed by the world of adults. The child rebels and rips his room apart. But the objects he wrecks have feelings, too.

"L'enfant et les sortilèges" says director Laurent Pelly "lasts about 45 minutes, but has the depth of an opera of three or four hours". (read the interview  in Opera Today here). Ravel's music is extraordinarily vivid, but his concepts don't easily translate into visual images. Pelly, however, is a master at bringing abstract ideas to life, as anyone who has seen his Glyndebourne Humperdinck Hansel und Gretel would know. The Teapot and the Chinese cup dance, their "human" bodies exposed beneath the hard exteriors of their form. Ravel glories in mad chinoiserie, which conductor Kazushi Ono plays up with manic relish. The words aren't real but dadaist invention, even in Colette's original. At Glyndebourne the surtitles flash "Sessue Hayakawa" .Since this Glyndebourne production is a co-production with Seiji Osawa's Saito Kinen Festival, it will be seen by Japanese audiences who will get the joke (and can read the nonsense "Chinese" writing). Hayakawa was a Hollywood megastar from the 1920's, who subtly subverted western stereotypes of Asian people. Ravel is sending up the whole notion of western attitudes to the East.

And by exploring exotic genres, he expanded the palette of mainstream western music. Even in Colette's original French text, the Teapot and teacup sing in cod-English "Sir, I punch your nose. I knock out you, stupid chose (thing)". Shepherds and Shepherdesses jump out of the wallpaper the Child has defaced, singing  of bizarrely coloured dogs and lambs. Everything safe and familiar is transformed. Ravel writes mock-pastoral,while the pastorals do a solemn mock baroque dance. Visions of Le petit Trianon! Revolution is afoot. The Fire explodes, threatening to engulf the room. Kathleen Kim shoots out of the fireplace in a structure that resembles flame. Kim also sings the Nightingale and the Princess. As theatre, the Fire is a dramatic stunning device, but also reminds us this Child has unleashed dangerous forces.

Some of Ravel's concepts are so abstract that they're a test of any director. Arithmetic, for example, which is so important to Ravel that he embeds the formal logic of mathematics into his music. (The connection with L'heure espagnole is obvious.) In the 1987 Glyndebourne production of  the opera, The Little Old Man who represents Arithmetic was surrounded by cardboard cut-outs of numbers. Pelly, however, brings out the true inner significance. The Child has rebelled against maths homework, and now the Glyndebourne chorus appears as identikit Child to mock him. The formality of rows and series - is this a droll in joke about Ravel's music, and the music which followed? Kazushi Ono defines the structure with clarity, and the chorus moves with precision. Surrealism liberates the imagination, but art needs an element of intellectual rigour,

Sofas, chairs and clocks, Cats, animals and insects, all confront the Child with their human-ness. In the Garden, adult values no longer dominate. Here, the Child will learn the true nature of humanity  Pelly, who designed the costumes,  doesn't trivialise the "animals" but shows them as realistically as is possible (given that Bats and Squirrels don't sing).  So different from the twee "animals" in Melly Still's The Cunning Little Vixen (review here). Here, animals are treated with dignity, for that's the message of the opera, that no-one is supreme in this universe.The Glyndebourne chorus transform into trees, each one individualized. Even "statues" move. The darkness now is less nightmare than transformative dream. At last the Child recognizes that selfishness is cruel. He caged and tortured the Squirrel, but now looks into her eyes and sees things through her perspective. The Squirrel was sung by Stéphanie d'Oustrac, who also sings the Cat. At last, the Child can be a child again and call "Maman! up towards the lighted window. Laurent Pelly's L'enfant et les sortilèges is  a masterwork of emotional intelligence and sensitivity,  absolutely informed by Ravel's music. 

Stéphanie d'Oustrac also sang the main role of Concepción in L'heure espagnole. Elliot Madore sang  Ramiro the Muleteer who carries clocks around so effortlessly  that he becomes a Grandfather Clock in L'enfant et les sortilèges  (where he also sings the Tom Cat). This constant role-changing might stress singers, but is very much part of the meaning of both operas.  They all performed extremely well. Torquemada the clockmaker thinks life can be regulated by clockwork, but as his wife discovers, things don't always go as planned. François Piolino sang Torquemada, and also the Teapot, the Frog and the Old Man of Arithmetic). The staging of L'heure espagnole seems relatively dated compared with the sheer genius of Pelly's  L'enfant et les sortilèges  but its clutter also suggests why we need clocks (and Arithmetic, and indeed of the mechanisms of the world around us).

This production will be screened online and in cinemas from 19th August.

Please see Opera Today for more detail and full cast list.

photos: Simon Annand

Glyndebourne Ravel - Laurent Pelly speaks

Fascinating Ravel Double Bill starts at Glyndebourne this weekend. L'heure espagnole and L'enfant et les sortilèges, two surrealist fantasies, so sharp they're hard to stage well. But if anyone can do them with style and depth, it's Laurent Pelly, who gave us the Glyndebourne Hansel und Gretel, and the ROH Manon and Cendrillon. With Pelly, you can count on intelligence and depth.  Go to the Glyndebourne website HERE and see a link to an interview with Pelly in Opera Today HERE. There's also a podcast.

“L’enfant et les sortilèges is a work that makes us understand what it’s like to be a child, maybe 8 or 10 years old. I was 14 years old when I first got to know it, and I was very moved. It lasts about 45 minutes, but it has the depth of an opera of three or four hours. There are so many images, so many personalities, and so many ideas! When I think about the music and its freedom and inventiveness, and the poetry in the text by Colette, I’m so happy that I’m doing it at Glyndebourne.“.......“L’enfant is about a nightmare, but the nightmare is the child’s vision of the world of adults. For me, the teapot, the teacup and the shepherdesses represent adults”. The child doesn’t understand the adult world, so he sees familiar objects come to life and threaten him. It’s fantasy but at the same time understandable “You see the world through the eyes of a child”, says Pelly."
photo courtesy ICA Management