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AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL OPERA REVIEW
Henry
Purcell, King Arthur: New
production by Corinne
and Gilles Benizio (Shirley and Dino), Soloists, chorus and orchestra of Concert Spirituel, Hervé
Niquet conductor at the Festival de Radio France Montpellier
Languedoc-Rousillon, L'Opéra
Comédie, Montpellier, France. 17.7.2008
(MM)
The modern revival of Purcell's 1691 King Arthur dates back to 1995 when it was staged at Brussel's Théâtre la Monnaie by choreographer Lucinda Childs, more recently its lively French dance rhythms have attracted choreographer Mark Morris in a 2006 production at English National Opera, seen this past March (2008) at the New York City Opera.
Given that dramatik operas themselves derive from the French mixture of theater and music (Molière/Lully collaborations for example) it was only a matter of time before France would covet the fruits of what had become of its venerable operatic tradition across the channel. It was France's one maverick opera company, Montpellier, which had the courage to ignite this foreign operatic war, and had the resources to do it: with the Baroque vocal and instrumental group Le Concert Spirituel in residence and the rare (but oh, so French) imagination to be contrarian in its response to across-the-channel high art.
If Brussels, London and New York took
on high-brow avant
garde and brand name American choreographers Childs and Morris,
Montpellier called
upon Shirley and Dino, the low-brow, off-beat street theater team that
somehow made a cult hit film (Cabaret Paradiso) a
few years ago. Corinne
and Gilles Benizio became Shirley
and Dino when they took an act to the 1988 "Off" element of the
Avignon Festival, back in the days when the bizarre and inane mixed
freely with
the weird and the wonderful. It made no sense whatsoever but
everyone
had a good time.
In Montpellier Shirley and Dino
wanted nothing to do with
slick Restoration theater. Dryden's blank verses recounting the
chivalric
adventures of Ariosto's King Arthur rescuing the blind princess Emmeline were
thrown out (or maybe never had been looked at) so that the team could
concentrate on trying to get the music of the dramatik
opera on the
stage. Not a small
task, and an
extremely messy one to clean up after, not to mention all the confusion of
managing
scenic transformations, and the the fact the directors even
placed themselves in the middle
of it. 'Why us?' they wept in the
program booklet.
No slick choreography either, as the
chorus of Arthurian
knights marching on and off the stage slaughtered the dancing precision of the
French court music. Two merry monks cavorted around the stage singing
Purcell's
cheery songs and Arthur, the guy in black leather pants with a crown,
more or
less balanced the attentions of two damsels when not passed out in
alcoholic
stupor at the barbecue. The
musically
ultra proper program booklet identified musical functions of the voices
(dessus,
haute-contre, taille, basse)
but not the characters the
voices embodied on the stage.
Early music conductor Hervé Niquet
and his musically ultra chic
Concert Spirituel were drawn into the fray, hapless, helpless and
superfluous as orchestras so often are in operatic organization, with conductor Niquet taking
full advantage of the rare opportunity to take himself center stage,
making
himself the star of the show as best he could - holding forth with
vaudeville
songs and schtick. The
venerable
maestro was upstaged only by Dino's mute rendition of the famed French
chanson
"Mexico," and Shirley and Dino's skiing across the stage uttering
nonsensical German sounding sounds.
Finally one did hear some of
Purcell's finest music very
well performed indeed by the superb Concert Spirituel instrumental
ensemble,
its twenty-four member chorus singing magnificently while never missing
a beat
of the low-brow physical comedy. Only
the solo singers were a disappointment, none of them large enough performers
vocally or
histrionically to command Montpellier's Opéra Comédie, though certainly willing
and adventurous and sometimes even charming - not
to mention slaughtering the Queen's English.
Michael Milenski
Photos © Marc Ginot
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