Hippolyte et Aricie
Hippolytus - Ed Lyon
Aricia - Christiane Karg
Phaedre - Sarah Connolly
Theseus - Stéphane Degout
Pluto / Jupiter / Neptune - François Lis
Diana - Katherine Watson
Œnone - Julie Pasturaud
Arcas - Aimery Lefèvre
Tisiphone - Loïc Félix
Mercury - Samuel Boden
Cupid - Ana Quintans
Glyndebourne Chorus
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/William Christie
Jonathan Kent: stage director
Paul Brown: set and costume designer
Mark Henderson: lighting designer
rec. June 2013, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Lewes.
Picture format: NTSC, 1080i
Sound format: LPCM 2. 0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Region Code 0 (Worldwide).
OPUS ARTE OABD7150D Blu-ray [186:00 + 15:00: documentary]
I’m clearly not the target demographic for this video release.
Filmed at Glyndebourne – where ticket prices (and availability)
are out of my reach - this production of Rameau’s great opera is
clearly for a certain type of opera fan who is interested in excess, not
coherence. Musically, the work is impeccable, with William Christie at
the helm of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, providing the impetus
for an energetic production. Visually, that’s another story.
The opera opens in a refrigerator filled with French foods: cassoulet,
sausages, a tube of what looks to be harisa and so on. The soloists are
on the top shelves and the chorus is down below. Shortly thereafter it
shifts to what looks like an abattoir with dead bucks hanging from on
high. Later, we see the back of the refrigerator – hell –
and then, the refrigerator is furnished and turns into an apartment house,
where, among other things, there are bright pink lights and sailors in
shorts dancing. The final act takes place in a morgue. That’s a
lot of different sets, different tones and colors.
That’s what irks me about this production. The faux campiness -
the desire to make everything different. I can imagine the director thinking
“Oh, it would be so cool to do this”. All contribute
to making this a distraction rather than being part of the story. There’s
too much going on, too much changing, there is so much “meta”
that the opera itself is drowned by hipness.
On the other hand, the cast, chorus and orchestra are impeccable. Rameau’s
music makes liberal use of the chorus and the Glyndebourne Chorus shines
here, with a beautifully homogeneous sound. The dances are interesting
but often unrelated to the overall production or what is happening during
a specific scene. Also, let’s not forget the excellent soloists.
Ed Lyon, Christiane Karg, Sarah Connolly and Stéphane Degout are
all top-notch, and the rest of the singers well above average. That said,
it’s so easy to get distracted by the busy directorial choices that
one can forget the music.
While many people did like this production, it was not universally appreciated.
The impeccable quality of the music is at odds with the scattershot direction.
We know that baroque operas were, in their time, quite extravagant, and
perhaps this way of producing this opera fits that logic. However it’s
hard to appreciate an opera that is so visually overwhelming — often
at odds with the music. An audio recording of this would be excellent;
the visuals are too random, too detached from the music, to make me want
to watch this again.
Kirk McElhearn
Kirk McElhearn writes about more than just music on his blog Kirkville.
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