Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937)
L’heure espagnole [53:00]
Concepción - Stéphanie d’Oustrac
Ramiro - Elliot Madore
Torquemada - François Piolino
Gonzalve - Alek Shrader
Don Ìñigo Gómez - Paul Gay
L’enfant et les sortilèges [50:00]
Child - Khatouna Gadelia
Mother, Chinese Cup, Dragonfly - Elodie Méchain
Grandfather clock, Tom cat - Elliot Madore
Armchair, Tree - Paul Gay
Chair, Bat - Julie Pasturaud
Teapot, Arithmetic, Frog - François Piolino
Fire, Princess, Nightingale - Kathleen Kim
Shepherd - Natalia Brzezinska
Shepherdess - Hila Fahima
Cat, Squirrel - Stéphanie d’Oustrac
Owl - Kirsty Stokes
Laurent Pelly (stage director)
The Glyndebourne Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Kazushi Ono
rec. live, Glyndebourne, August 2012
Region Code: 0; Aspect Ratio: 16:9; PCM Stereo; DTS 5.1
FRA MUSICA FRA008 [103:00
(operas) + 23:00 (extras)]
Kazushi Ono and Laurent Pelly made an auspicious
debut at Glyndebourne with
Hansel and Gretel in 2008. This Ravel
pairing is even more successful. These operas, with their wry wit and
sense of a sly wink, suit Pelly’s talents particularly well, and
far better than the spectacle of his 2012
Robert le Diable for
Covent Garden. He taps into the good humour of each piece and brings
it out very well indeed, with good direction of his singers and perfectly
tailored sets.
Torquemada’s workshop may well look a little too overcrowded in
L’heure espagnole - why on earth is there a car hiding
in the corner? - but it gives plenty of opportunities for well-observed
attention to detail. The garish colour scheme (a Pelly trademark) plays
up to the sunburnt Spanish setting and the myriad of clocks, none of
which tells the right time, points to the chaos at the heart of Concepción’s
crazy day, not to mention Torquemada’s private life. All the singers
approach the work with bluff good humour and inhabit their characters
very distinctively. Stéphanie d’Oustrac is a sultry, frustrated
Concepción, becoming ever more frazzled as the opera progresses.
Her colourful mezzo skilfully conveys both the sexuality and the fun
of the character. Alek Shrader hams it up brilliantly as a greasy, self-obsessed
Gonzalve, too concerned with his poetry to satisfy Concepción.
Paul Gay’s Gómez is suitably gauche, and François
Piolino plays Torquemada with just the right mix of brightness and weediness.
Elliot Madore is an appealingly blunt Ramiro, who clearly enjoys coming
out on top - as it were - in the end.
The staging for
L’Enfant et les sortilèges is even
finer. Pelly is in his element here, and seems to revel in each new
opportunity to bring Ravel’s fantasy world alive, from the massively
oversized table and chair that dwarf the child in the opening scene
through to the baroque figures that leap out of the wallpaper. The costumes
are also exceptional, from the chairs and the crockery to the animals
and the trees, and it’s probably the most purely believable
L’Enfant
that I’ve seen. The singing is excellent too, particularly from
Khatouna Gadelia’s child who undergoes the transition from menace
to innocent very convincingly. In the uniformly excellent ensemble -
all of whom also feature in
L’heure espagnole - Kathleen
Kim deserves special mention for her coloratura. The banter between
the cup and the teapot is very winning too.
Complementing Pelly’s staging is the orchestral sound, captured
beautifully in the intimate Glyndebourne acoustic. Kazushi Ono, who
was just about the only person to escape from
the
EIF’s disastrous Fidelio
with his dignity intact, crafts the sound from the pit brilliantly so
that Ravel’s exquisite orchestration is allowed not only to breathe
but to flourish. It’s particularly beguiling in the opening bars
of
L’heure espagnole, but each scene of
L’enfant
sounds distinctly crafted too. The frequent laughs from the audience
confirm that they were having a great time, and I’m pretty sure
any home viewer will too. As with their
Turn
of the Screw, FRA Musica’s packaging is beautiful, with
a lavishly illustrated booklet and two bonus films, but I still find
it immensely irritating that the booklet is stapled into the DVD case,
making it impossible to take it out to read it.
Simon Thompson