Opera Bastille,
Paris, France. Premier Balcony (Seat
K9-2, E100).
Story. After celebrating the defeat of the Saxons by
King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, Lancelot meets Arthur’s wife
Guinevere for a tryst, an act witnessed by Mordred, Arthur’s cousin and a
pretender to the throne. Lancelot fights
Mordred and wounds him. Fleeing with
Guinevere to his castle, Lancelot learns that Mordred has survived and has
revealed the truth to Arthur. Arthur
consults Merlin who foretells the downfall of the Round Table. After unsuccessfully pleading with Lancelot
to deny their affair, Guinevere strangles herself with her own hair. Meanwhile,
Lancelot goes to battle and is mortally wounded. Before he dies, Arthur tells him that he is
forgiven. Arthur subsequently dies also.
Conductor –
Philippe Jordan. Genievre – Sophie Koch,
Arthus – Thomas Hampson, Lancelot – Roberto Alagna, Mordred – Alexandre Duhamel,
Lyonnel (Lancelot’s aide) – Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Merlin – Peter Sidhom.
We are in Paris
for a few days to conclude our France trip with Ellie, Kuau, and Reid. We had a choice between this opera and the
Magic Flute. For various reasons
including scheduling, we decided to attend this one. Right after we settled in our Airbnb
apartment, I went to Opera Bastille to purchase these tickets. Our row at the back of the Premier Balcony
section was quite empty, but otherwise attendance seemed to be quite good in
this 2700-seat auditorium.
The story
perhaps should be titled “The Last Days of King Arthur” as it talks about the
deaths of his wife, his best friend, and himself. I do not know much about Arthur beyond the Ex-Caliber
and the Round Table, and this aspect of his life was certainly not
familiar. Since Arthur is a fictional
character, I assume different story lines can be attributed to him.
The “story” I
wrote above is mostly from the wiki article on the opera, augmented by what I
actually saw during the performance.
Anne and I were resigned to sit through a lot of singing that we could
not understand, comforted by the fact that the story line is simple enough so
we should be able to construct it as it progresses. We were very pleased, and relieved, as the overhead
projection asking people to turn off their cell phones in three languages
(French, English, and German) turned into surtitles in two languages (French
and English.)
As a violin
student, the only work by Ernest Chausson I knew about was his “poeme” for
violin and orchestra (turns out other arrangements exist.) He evidently was born into a very rich
family, trained as a lawyer, and died in 1899 at age 44 when he hit a brick
wall while riding a bicycle. His only
opera was completed in 1895, but wasn’t premiered until 1903.
I enjoyed the
opera from the get go: an enthusiastic overture that led to the raising of the
curtain. To the extent I managed to pay
attention to the orchestra, particular at the start of the three acts and
during the scenery changes, it did a superb job. We picked the seats in the balcony over the
orchestra for the reason that we could have a good look at the orchestra, and
it was the right decision. Philippe
Jordan conducted with great enthusiasm, responded in kind by the players.
The singing by
the principals was uniformly good. I
would only quibble a bit with Hampson’s mid-range which was on the weak
side. We saw Sophie Koch a while ago as
Charlotte in Werther, opposite Jonas Kaufman.
There I thought she did a great job, but could use a “soft” in her
volume setting. That was uniformly the
case this evening: everyone was trying to belt out their lyrics, admittedly a
better alternative than not being heard.
There are many documents in the web debating if Opera Bastille utilizes
a sound enhancement system. I can’t
tell, but can be convinced that they do given how strong everyone sounded. The chorus had only a couple of short passages,
but was quite impressive.
There are quite
a few duets between Lancelot and Guinevere.
The first of which was a love song in Scene 2 of Act 1. I don’t know French, but have always enjoyed
French love songs. I must say while the
individual singing was good, the two voices didn’t blend well together at
all. If I were a musicologist, I might
offer the opinion that this was by design to foretell the trouble that would
come later. Or I can be like most critics
and simply say that it is bad music (more on that later.)
Opera Bastille
was completed in 1990, and one of its features is the ability to accommodate complicated
sets. That wasn’t necessary today as the
set would even fit the budget of (the now-defunct) New York City Opera. One basically has as the backdrop a painting
of a hill and a tower (must be of some significance in Arthurian lore,) a circle
staked out by swords, two walls of a house, and this ubiquitous red sofa. Two thirds of the sofa was ablaze in Act 3,
the flames were so high that I wondered if the sprinklers would go off (and
worried that they didn’t.)
We didn’t buy a
program both for its cost (E12) and the fact that it is in French. I did look up a few web articles on the
opera, most of the writers were down on the opera. Evidently Chausson wanted to write like a
French Wagner (my words), particularly in the style of Tristan and Isolde and
Parsifal, and most critics thought he failed miserably. Evidently Tristan and Isolde found their
re-incarnations as Lancelot and Guinevere, and Erda as Merlin. Indeed one can find parallels to both Wagner
operas if one chooses to do so, with one exception to Chausson’s advantage:
this opera is much shorter at about 2:45 hours actual performance time. While the long passages must be difficult,
they must be easy compared to the demands of Wagner.
I found several scenes
rather compelling. One was Guinevere’s
suicide: she complained to her dark hair that it wasn’t beautiful enough to
help her keep Lancelot’s love, but asked it to end her life (Guinevere in this
opera had either blonde or brown hair.) The solo viola accompanying her singing was simply
exquisite. Guinevere started as a
selfish control freak at the beginning of the opera, and manages to morph into
a sympathetic figure, which is quite a feat. The other was Arthur telling
Lancelot that his honor depends on himself, and not on others. The actual words were more poignant than
this.
I did find the
last part of the opera puzzling. As
Arthur faces death, the dead soldiers around him (including Lancelot who was
sitting in this – what else – red sofa) began to rise and walk off the stage.
It’s a pity that
this opera probably won’t get staged very often. I am glad we got a chance to see it.
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