Marin Marais,  Sémélé: (New Production) Soloists of L'Opéra National de Montpellier, Chorus and Orchestra of Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet (conductor), Montpellier, France. 30.01.2007 (MM)

Marin Marais (1656-1728) though familiar perhaps to a few cello cognoscenti for his massive collection of cello solos and duets, was most likely unknown until now to the opera public.  Well, the opera public of Montpellier that is, one that often finds itself in coping with very rare repertory.

Cellist and pedagogue Marin Marais wrote four operas of which Sémélé was apparently the second.  Though the work was not a success when performed in 1709, the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles nonetheless has resurrected it or at least a portion of it.  This version was first given last summer in a concert performance at the Radio France Montpellier Festival, and this past week (January 30, February 1, 3) the Opéra National de Montpellier added costumes, sets and movement for the principals.

As seen in Montpellier, Sémélé, is a slight work and just how much of it we actually saw is, in fact, a lingering question.  The performance lasted a mere two and one half hours, though a Lully tragedie lyrique (the last was Armide, 1686) and a Rameau tragedy (the first was Hippolite et Aricie, 1733) rarely come in under four hours, sub-plots, choruses, ballets and orchestral interludes included. 

The story line in Montpellier was made tight, too tight, involving only seven characters, Jupiter and jealous Juno, Sémélé and her earthly fiance Adraste, Sémélé's maid Dorine and her lover Arbate, actually Mercure in disguise, and Sémélé's father Cadmus.  No longer displaying the great emotions of Lully's chivalric heroes, this Sémélé anticipates the small intrigues and jealousies of Rameau's pastoral setting.

 

There were a several important chorus scenes, though Marin Marais' original score will have had many more.  There was no ballet though there was certainly ballet music, truncated to be sure thus saving the problem of providing choreography and dancers.  Chorus and ballet are the heart and soul of French Baroque opera, and they were sorely missed in Montpellier.

The visual ideal of the production was realized by the exquisite costumes of Giusi Giustino, a mix of detailed period and abstracted modern dress. It was immediately apparent that that this production was about design, not
about theater.

Director Olivier Simmonet in his debut as a metteur en scène provided an obvious, soap opera staging, ending the opera with the spurned, silent Juno alone on stage, a prosaic comment on Sémélé's triumphal ascension into the heavens.  His production included spectacular video intrusions realized by Calicot Productions that gave us changing locales and huge close-ups (many all too close) of the singers, depriving the stage of depth by creating a two-dimensional canvas like a flat television screen.

Gilles Cenazandotti's scenery consisted of abstracted architectural shapes carved in white foam and white painted ropes construed in tree and swing shapes, these in relief against a large square of changing saturated color, again negating all sense of depth.  The overall effect was at worst like department store window dressing and at best handsome.

The glory of French Baroque opera is its dramatic recitatives, and these were delivered by a largely non-French cast.  The beautiful Shannon Mercer regally intoned the gloriously ornamented speeches of Sémélé and Anders J. Dahlin not only cut a fine figure as Adraste but also sang this haute-contre role elegantly (no castrati here!). The Dorine of Bénédicte Tauran (from Limoges) was quite charming against the rough voiced Mercure of bass Lisandro Abadie while the Jupiter of Thomas Dolié and the Juno of Hjordis Théault, fine performances as well, had the misfortune of being the subjects of most of the close-ups.  These are singers, not TV actors after all.  

Montpellier hosts a fine Baroque music group, Le Concert Spirituel, with an excellent conductor, Hervé Niquet.  This large ensemble is able to accomplish the difficult French court and Accademie works with utter finesse.  Lacking the splendour of French Baroque opera's spectacle on the stage, this performance made up for it from the pit, with impressive thunder provided by the old trick of simply shaking and striking a sheet of zinc, and with an earthquake, its terrifying effects made by three bassoons underscoring the basses through the length of this extended scene.  More impressive yet was the chorus of Le Concert Spiritual, joined in the pomp and terror scenes by the brilliant tones of the high Baroque trumpet.  This chorus, in abstracted stage movements, was twenty fine, discernibly individual voices joined, not melded into a mighty sound when needed, and diminished to individual whispers when appropriate.

Over the past few years the Montpellier Radio France Festival and the Opera National de Montpellier, under the same artistic direction, have turned out excellent productions of rare Italian Baroque operas (granted production requirements are much less stressful than for multi-form French Baroque opera).  Exploring the rare French repertory is a most exciting project, particularly with the excellent musical resources available to Montpellier.  Unfortunately this Sémélé and last year's Calliroé have not attained the production standard Montpellier has set for itself.

 
Michael Milenski  

 

Picture © Marc Ginot, Opéra National de Montpellier

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