SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Jacques Offenbach, Orphée aux enfers:  Soloists, chorus. ballet and orchestra of the Opéra National de Montpellier, Languedoc-Rousillon, Hervé Niquet conductor.  Location, Montpellier, France. 23.12.2007 (MM)

Gabrielle Philiponet as Eurydice, Marco de Sapia as Jupiter, Loïc Félix as Pluto

 

Offenbach's vast catalogue is under-exploited here in the south of France where the omnipresent Les Contes d'Hoffmann is usually complimented by La Périchole and the Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein.  Happily this past holiday season,  Nice offered La Vie Parisienne and Montpellier trotted out a handsome Orphée aux enfers.  This leaves only a new La Belle Hélène to update the local quotient of the standard international Offenbach.  One can only dream of more Offenbach revivals.

Hoffmann is never a problem - big music, big singers and big sets easily impress.  But that is that for easy Offenbach.  La Périchole and La Grande Duchesse are masterpieces of simple humanity and simple humor, yet while suffering through overblown performances of these complex and sophisticated slight and silly pieces, one can only wonder what a Grand Duchess delivered by Offenbach's legendary mezzo Hortense Schneider must have been like, or savor  memories of Stéphanie d'Oustrac's Périchole in Marseille not so long ago, or Maria Ewing's Périchole in San Francisco long, long ago. And one can only groan at recollections of ponderous parody productions of Orphée aux enfers in Santa Fe or La Belle Hélène in Aix-en-Provence.

Like Monteverdi's Orfeo who can move Hell only when he stops trying to impress Hell, Offenbach's operettes become deliciously amusing as they are meant to be, only when they are not working at being funny, when Offenbach's simple parodies are not themselves parodied.  Orphée aux enfers in Montpellier came in somewhere in the middle ground, sometimes simple and fun, more often imploding upon itself from the sheer weight of production and hyper-energized performances.

Offenbach made much of his genius for simple humanity and simple humor in his early, small theaters; the original Orphée aux enfers written in 1858 with two acts and four scenes for his Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens (a law had just been passed that allowed more than four performers on its stage!).  But Offenbach, as so many of his producers since, succumbed to the urge to elaborate on his successes by inaugurating his residency in the big, new Théâtre de la  Gaîté in 1874 with a style énorme version, an orchestra of 60, a military band of 40, 120 choristers, 78 dancers, in 4 acts and 12 scenes.  One can only dream (or dread)  that the Opéra Bastille will one day produce this version.

The producers in Montpellier split the difference, coming up with a version in two acts and four scenes which relied heavily on the 1858 version, adding material from the 1874 version.  Whether artistic or budgetary, the decision was a good one, offering an afternoon  that was finally amusing if not  very deliciously so.  The success owes more to the staging of Claire Servais (who inevitably had revised the text as well), than the conducting of Montpellier's resident early music conductor Hervé Niquet whose lugubrious-seeming tempos seldom ignited Offenbach's mercuric score.  But maybe that is about as fast as you can dance the can-can anyway.

Claire Servais' staging relied heavily on sight gags of which there were many, and a few good ones (Diana's dogs, Pluto's car, John Styx' hand), a technique that draws attention to what is supposed to be funny and obligates the performers to execute a theatrical process rather than bring a role to life.  The roles in Orphée aux enfers are already compromised because they are broad and bold caricatures, thus finding and projecting the je ne sais quoi of Offenbach's humanity is elusive.  Of the performers,  only the Pluto of Loïc Félix, and to a lesser degree the Opinion publique of Hanna Schaer found some of this unique Offenbachian humanness and consequent charm.  Though the Orphée of Frédéric Antoun was appropriately funny from time to time it did not capture the capricious honesty of the male spirit that the role requires. Marco de Sapia, a fine, young performer, worked too hard to make the Jupiter and Gabrielle Philiponet, the Eurydice, was too busy singing to allow us to share her delights in ephemeral sexual attractions.

Much larger than Offenbach's Théâtre des Bouffes, Montpellier's Opéra Comédie (and the Opéra Royal de Wallonie and the Théatre Municipal de Metz that share this production) beguiled the producers into making the most of sets and costumes.  Set designer Dominique Pichou produced a fine Olympus, a perfect balance of caricature with other worldly atmosphere, and enfers itself was an appropriately functional space to show off the plentitude of elaborate costumes designed by Jorge Jara. The lively can-can of the corps de ballet, included Diana's four male hounds now sporting colorful skirts which they waved in perfect unison with those of seven ballerinas (some kicking higher than others).  The final chorus was repeated three or four times to the great delight of a flock of Montpellians filled with holiday spirit.


Michael Milenski

Pictures © Opéra National de Montpellier