OPERA LAFAYETTE LOOKS AT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Nathalie Paulin as the eponymous Sapho in Martini's opera 

Perhaps not every lover of the arts will agree with us but we believe that a work of art requires no explanation. It should stand on its own merits. We see people in museums being led around by a docent explaining why a certain painting is excellent.  We are the type to wander around and stop at a painting that arrests our attention, take it in, and decide for ourselves why we like it.

When we go to the theater and the director requires several pages to explain his/her concept and what he/she is trying to convey, we feel irritated.  Either it works or it doesn't.

On Sunday evening, Opera Lafayette, those welcome visitors from D.C., threw us a curve ball by presenting some strangely directed excerpts from three operas composed during the late 18th c. in France. No doubt the tumultuous political climate had an influence on the choice of libretti and compositional style.

However, we feel that Director Mirenka Čechová, in her attempt to do something new and interesting, decided to fit the scenes into a Procrustean bed. She elaborately described why she chose the colors of the French flag and laid a common motive onto the three heroines of the three operas from which the scenes were taken.  We got a headache just trying to understand her "Director's Note".

Judith A. Miller, Associate Professor of History at Emory University contributed several more pages about the French revolution. We would sooner read Simon Schama's 1989 tome "Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution". We do not come to the opera to be educated nor to be baffled.  We come to be entertained and inspired by beautiful music.

And beautiful music was heard, no doubt about that! Canadian soprano Nathalie Paulin gave an impressive performance in scenes from the three operas represented. In Sacchini's Oedipe à Colone she made a splendid Antigone; in Jean-Paul-Égide Martini's Sapho she was equally fine as Sapho; and in Luigi Cherubini's Médée she was incredibly powerful. Her acting was as fine as her singing.

We find no fault with the fine singing and acting of tenor Antonio Figueroa who excelled in the roles of Jason and Phaon. Baritone Javier Arrey was no less excellent as Oedipe and Stesichore. Soprano Sophie Junker was fine in the smaller roles of Cléis and Néris.

Ryan Brown's conducting of the Opera Lafayette period-instrument ensemble was thrilling, as it usually is.  With such fine musical values to delight our ears, it seemed a shame to clutter the stage with symbols.  This may be all the rage in Europe but it did not please us.

This is not to say that the images were unattractive. We mostly admired Martin Spetlik's lighting of Petr Bohác's interesting set design; it's just that the images, as striking as they were, seemed jarring against the music and apposite only to the unconscious of the director.

There were birds on sticks, men carrying suitcases leaking sand, an acrylic tub filled with water to drown the soprano, and what all else.  If music is to provoke imagery we want it to be from our own unconscious memories and fantasies, not from someone else's.

We hope Opera Lafayette's next visit will return us to the world of theatrical realism!

(c) meche kroop

COSI FAN LE FRANCESE

Antonio Figueroa, Pascale Beaudin, Jeffrey Thompson, Claire Debono, Blandine Saskiewicz, Alex Dobson

Although we mainly deplore tinkering with the classics, we enjoyed a delightful evening with Opera Lafayette last night.  They presented a clever pairing of Mozart's 1790 Cosi fan tutte in L.V. Durdilly's French translation of Da Ponte's libretto in tandem with Les Femmes Vengées by François André-Danican Philidor which was composed 15 years earlier.  The concept was to show what happened to Da Ponte's four lovers after ten years had passed.  This pastiche made for an evening as long as Tristan und Isolde but far more lighthearted.

It also permitted the use of a single set and a beautiful one at that.  Misha Kachman created a light and airy space--a central room with a room off to each side and a view of an orange tree representing a garden outside; this permitted characters to be closeted away from the main action and to be listening through the walls.  Indeed it seemed as if the Comédie Française had commissioned the opera from Mozart!

Effective lighting by Colin K. Bills washed the set in warm pastels that reflected the sumptuous costumes by Kendra Rai.  Director Nick Olcott kept the action humming along.  A couple arias were sacrificed and spoken dialogue replaced the recitativi.  A non-singing character, a painter, was invented (or borrowed from the second opera) and Gillaume and Fernand were in his studio to pose for a painting; this action was established during the overture.  As it turned out, the painter did have a singing role in the second opera and tenor Jeffrey Thompson was our favorite performer of the evening, both dramatically and vocally.

Ryan Brown, Artistic Director of Opera Lafayette, conducted with gusto and finesse.  Musical values were topnotch overall.  Although Philidor is not Mozart (well, who is?), no apologies were necessary for his tuneful classicism.  Soprano Pascale Beaudin made a fine Fleurdelise and mezzo Blandine Staskiewicz an equally fine Dorabelle.  Tenor Antonio Figueroa and baritone Alex Dobson sang the roles of their suitors Fernand and Guillaume.  When they appeared in their disguises, they were costumed as trappers from Canada, sporting Davey Crockett hats and lots of fringe.  It absolutely worked.

Don Alphonse was sung by Bernard Deletré who has a commanding onstage presence but whose voice sounded a bit frayed.  Claire Debono was a delightful Delphine.  In the second opera she had married the painter and had risen out of the ranks of servant.  Indeed she orchestrated the comic revenge that the two sisters would take on their wandering husbands.  It was interesting that the second opera was taking place ten years later and the costumes were now of the Empire period, even though the opera was composed earlier.

Making a pastiche of the two operas was well conceived; the theme was infidelity and provided a justification for presenting Mozart's beloved opera in French.  We cannot avoid saying that Italian "sings" better; although we are fluent in French we definitely made use of the titles.  Italian is just more singable.

We do hope that the D.C. based Opera Lafayette will return soon to New York with another imaginative evening.

© meche kroop