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SEEN
AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL OPERA REVIEW
Pierre Bartholomée, La Lumière
Antigone :
Mireille Delunsch (soprano, Antigone), Natascha Petrinsky
(mezzo-soprano, Hannah), Ensemble de musique de chambre de
la Monnaie, Koen Kessels – La Monnaie, Brussels, 18.4.2008 (HC)
Like
its predecessor, Pierre Bartholomée’s second opera La Lumière
Antigone sets a libretto by Henry Bauchau, with whom the
composer has collaborated on several occasions. The dramatic scena
for soprano and large ensemble Le Rêve de Diotime (1999)
sets words from Bauchau’s novel Diotime et les lions,
whereas Ils étaient trois sur la route (children’s chorus
and piano, 2003) and Histoire d’un caillou (soprano and
piano, 2000-2006) also set words by Bauchau. Unlike its
predecessor, La Lumière Antigone is on a somewhat smaller
scale : it is considerably shorter and calls for smaller vocal and
orchestral forces. In this case there are just two voices (soprano
and mezzo-soprano) and a small mixed ensemble of fourteen players
(string quintet, wind quintet, trumpet, trombone, percussion and
piano). Its three acts play for a little over one hour and a half.
The first act is a long monologue or a dramatic scena for
Antigone, the second act is about the improbable meeting between
Antigone and Hannah whereas the final act is a short monologue
again, sung by Hannah.
It is of course tempting to consider that Bartholomée’s second
opera is the direct sequel to its predecessor; but not quite so
indeed. Oedipe sur la route dealt more or less faithfully
with the well-known myth and, by so doing, told a fairly linear
story. On the other hand, if it is true that La Lumière
Antigone more or less begins where Oedipe sur la route
ended, it no longer deals with mythological matter. The poet in
fact imagined what might have happened to Antigone after she has
been condemned to be immured alive. The opera begins when Antigone
has entered the dark cave in which she is to die (“I enter into
solitude and I am afraid”). Antigone relives her life and all the
past events that caused her to be condemned to death by
immurement. She defends herself fiercely for her fight was against
injustice. She refused to let Oedipe’s body rot under the sun and
abandoned as a prey to the vultures. She also realises that her
woman’s life will remain unfulfilled, for she will never be a
mother. Antigone’s last words (“Who speaks to us with her life
without ever leaving this earth?”) are echoed by Hannah. Hannah is
no mythological character. She is just a present-day actress who
has played Antigone’s part (“I am here to speak and sing on your
behalf”). When Antigone questions whether gods and tyrants still
exist, Hannah tells her of the new gods and tyrants of modern
times : market shares, machines, profit and the like. She also
tells Antigone about men’s follies resulting in war and
destruction. Antigone disappears and Hannah is left alone for her
last monologue : she too wants to say “No” to iniquity and
violence. She too wants to be another Antigone by helping change
the world (“One can change life”) by letting reason have the upper
hand on narrow-mindedness and injustice. Antigone will be her
light, La Lumière Antigone.
Pierre Bartholomée’s magnificent music is undoubtedly one of the
main assets of the opera. The music moves at a fairly steady and
moderate tempo throughout, albeit with enough variety and contrast
to sustain the fairly long time span of the work, for the three
acts play without break. For all its variety, the music, however,
is tightly held together through the use of recurrent motives and
their variants, so that the composer achieves unity within
diversity in a most successful way. The music also allows for many
warmly lyrical moments; and the scoring for small instrumental
forces never obscures words, which is paramount in a work in which
there is little dramatic action, if at all, and one in which
everything – so to say – happens in words rather than in deeds.
Mireille Delunsch and Natascha Petrinsky sang superbly with
excellent diction so that words came clearly through. Koen Kessels
conducted a committed and vital reading of this magnificent score.
I for one hope that the opera will soon be recorded for there is
so much both in the words and in the music that a single hearing
can not reveal. This is the sort of work that needs repeated
hearings to make its full impact, although one single hearing is
enough to show that this is a great piece of music.
As already briefly hinted at earlier in this review, there is very
little action, if at all, in this opera; but that little was
deftly handled by the stage director Philippe Sireuil. Antigone’s
cave is suggested by a square hole above the orchestra, whereas
Hannah is clearly part of the audience at the beginning of the
second act. She gets nearer to Antigone for their dialogue and
then moves back into the audience for her last monologue. Simple
but highly effective lighting also considerably helps creating
atmosphere. Mention must also be made of the video installation by
Kurt Ralske, that I found quite effective in the first act where
it focused on Antigone’s face, a bit less so in the second act
when displaying explicit images of war and destruction that I
found a bit redundant since Hannah’s words were clear enough. On
the whole, however, this was one of the most satisfying operatic
experiences that I have had recently; and I hope that the opera’s
life will not be limited to a handful of performances. This is
vintage Bartholomée and the music deserves to be heard again and
again.
Hubert Culot
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