Rameau has been well-served
recently, with a DVD of Platée,
as performed by Marc Minkowski's Les
Musiciens du Louvre and with a stellar
cast. This DVD, featuring two of the
same lead singers (Paul Agnew and Laurent
Naouri), under the direction of William
Christie and Les Arts Florissants, shows
how popular Rameau has become in recent
years, both for recordings and performances
of his operas.
The good thing about
operas on DVD is that you get images
with the music, and you also get subtitles
allowing you to follow the plot more
easily. The bad thing, however, is that
you get images with the music - if the
staging is poor, or not to your taste,
it's pretty hard to sit through three
hours of opera just to hear the music.
To quote the blurb for this disc on
the manufacturer’s web site, "Director
Robert Carsen and his creative team
flood the stage with summer blossoms,
drifts of autumn leaves, winter snows
and thunderous spring storms. The cast
of 140 are attired in elegant costumes
inspired by late 1940s Dior." Ah, yet
another baroque opera dressed up in
modern attire....
One of the biggest
problems is the costumes, which in the
first act, are all post-modern slate
grey (late 1940s Dior? Didn't Dior like
color?), and the lighting which makes
the performers blend in to the drop
at the back of the stage. Of course,
the lighting was designed for the performance,
not for the filming, and the weakness
here is obvious from the first act.
Add to that the frozen performers -
especially the choir, who stand like
parking meters around the stage - and
the dancers with their "modern" version
of St. Vitus' dance, and you may easily
be annoyed.
When the second act
comes along, monochromism is again the
rule, though this time the costumes
of many of the characters are yellowish
(or white with yellow lights to give
them hue), though the leads haven't
changed from their post-modern grey.
This act is more attractive overall,
with the stage strewn with coloured
flowers; not very imaginative, after
all, but when you don't have any sets
to speak of you have to do something.
But in case you thought it would last,
the greys return, and take over the
stage during the obligatory dance movement
with a scantily clad, lithe female dancer
being manipulated by one of the grey
men. I guess there is a message somewhere,
in these recurring female dancers in
lingerie, but I don't get it. As always,
the choreography is bouncing to a different
beat, and highly detracts from the smooth,
flowing melodies that Rameau wrote for
his musical interludes.
Naturally, many people
like this sort of "minimalist" staging;
or do they really? I can't imagine sitting
through three hours of this without
closing my eyes. But when I look away
from the television, the magic begins.
Christie is one of today's foremost
conductors of baroque music, and his
ensemble is crisp and lively, with tempi
and rhythms that make you want to tap
your feet. (It's a shame the choreographer
didn't pick up on that ...) The singers
are all top-rate, though Anna-Maria
Panzarella, as Sémire, doesn't
have the voice for this type of music.
Paul Agnew is excellent, Laurent Naouri
is regal, and Barbara Bonney shines
in her (brief) role as Alphise - it
is a pure joy to listen to her sing
this role.
One of the finest moments
is in the third act (there is now a
set; a large table surrounded by chairs)
when Paul Agnew, as Abaris, comes storming
on stage with his choir (they are all
dressed in white), and sings, "Jouissons,
Jouissons, de nos beaux ans", as if
in a cry to get these boring grey people
off the stage and to bring in the excitement
and joy that is omnipresent in the music.
This joy is to absent in this performance,
that Agnew seems to cry out for the
audience as well as his character.
It is a shame that
such excellent music-making is marred
by staging and costumes that are the
antithesis of Rameau's spirit, and this
disc ends up being more something to
listen to than to watch. Barbara Bonney,
in the "making of" included in this
set, sums up the problem: "It's very
sexy music", she says, and the lack
of sexiness in the staging drowns the
music in moroseness.
Kirk McElhearn
Les Arts Florissants/William Christie