Switzerland Rameau, Platée: Soloists, Extras Affiliation of Zurich Opera, Refrain of Zurich Opera, Orchestra La Scintilla Zurich / Emmanuelle Haïm (conductor). Zurich Opera, 10.12.2023. (MF)
Jean-Philippe Rameau labelled his Platée a ballet bouffon. Conductor Emanuelle Haïm and director Jetske Mijnssen duly ship on the promise. It’s the French-Dutch duo’s second Zurich manufacturing, after their success in 2019 with the identical composer’s earlier Hippolyte et Aricie.
Platée, sung by a tenor, is an ugly water nymph who has satisfied herself that each one males should immediately fall for her, together with Jupiter. She is satisfied that even his immediately leaving any room she enters might be nothing however proof of his infatuation together with her. Having bitten off greater than she will be able to chew, issues don’t finish effectively for this nymph looking for love. The gods are taking part in a merciless sport: Jupiter, cheered on by the lesser deities, will get concerned with Platée for appearances solely, and to appease his goddess spouse Juno’s jealousy. With the supreme prize of divine nuptials seemingly inside attain, our nymph collapses in disillusion and humiliation, mocked by all.
A very good factor is that director Mijnssen opts for a kinder strategy. She could be very taken with the protagonist’s charming nature and exhibits us a teen (illustrated by the fan posters hanging in her room) who’s all the time falling in love however is rarely cherished again. Unflinching, Platée stands by her needs, her proper to like and eroticism. She is near our hearts, an open particular person kindling our sympathy. However this opera can be a merciless comedy: the gods, muses and different characters mock Platée’s needs and her lust as haughty. An easy-minded creature, she is ready to imagine that the boss of all bosses would descend from his throne to marry her. She is deceived by the society of gods, shamed and scorned. Nonetheless, her sincerity is genuinely touching.
Though Rameau was over sixty when he wrote this opera, it sounds youthful, contemporary, witty and fashionable. He experimented, wrote visionary music and even used quarter tones at one level. The rhythms fluctuate continually, the harmonies are refined and declamation is completely versatile. Rameau applies infinite nuance to the interpretation of the assorted emotional ranges into music. His rating comprises a substantial amount of black humour, irony and typically a contact of bitterness, too. Conductor Haïm, a famend Rameau specialist who based her personal baroque ensemble over twenty years in the past, feels that he by no means earlier than, nor after, composed ‘such loopy music’.
Mijnssen and her manufacturing staff (the flowery set is by Ben Baur and imaginative costumes by Hannah Clark) conceive a theatre inside a theatre situation. The background story is the forged in preparation for a ballet efficiency. They rehearse Swan Lake. It’s an apt selection of one other piece set round water, whose protagonist longs for salvation by means of love – and ends unhappily. Mijnssen skilfully combines the singers with the eight sturdy ballet ensembles. Somewhat than separating the dancing from the singing, she chooses to merge the 2, as varied singers take up their secondary roles as dance grasp, budding ballerina (Platée) or star dancer (Jupiter). Additionally, Mijnssen locations varied references, amongst others ‘L’enfer c’est les autres’ in daring letters as a clue to Sartre’s Huis clos. It may all be cruelty, unhappiness and despair till Mijnssen pulls a theatrical rabbit out of her hat. Because the orchestra performs the final bars, she has the lights come again on for a micro-epilogue: maybe Jupiter duped everybody besides Platée in any case?
French tenor Matthias Vidal is a brilliantly comical and touchingly naïve Platée, a job which Rameau wrote for a haute-contre, on the time the first French operatic tenor voice. Vidal rises to the problem from Mijnssen. He dances (a tutu look to not be missed!), will get misplaced in boisterous infatuation and crashes in despair within the remaining tutti scene, mocked by all of the wannabes round Jupiter. An entertaining but deeply musical delight. Regardless of being on the plot’s centre, Jupiter (Evan Hughes) and his spouse Juno (Katia Ledoux) have been confined by Rameau to reasonably smaller roles, which they play fantastically. Hughes is an imposing determine with a powerful physicality and Ledoux a powerfully jealous spouse.
La Folie (Mary Bevan) is a Pina Bausch-like chain smoking dance grasp performing spectacular coloratura whereas coaxing Platée into uncomfortable ballet positions. Tania Lorenzo’s L’Amour has a rousing entrance in glittery tails and high hat that may have made Liza Minnelli in Cabaret proud. These excellent performances had been accomplished by the sturdy ensemble, specifically Renato Dolcini as Satyre/Cithéron, Theo Hoffman as Momus and Anna El-Khashe as Clarine/Thalie. To not point out the harmonious ensemble of dancers who obtain a powerful fusion with the forged of singers.
Emanuelle Haïm shows her French baroque experience fantastically. She conducts the reliably sensible La Scintilla orchestra. They play with zest and relish, bringing out wealthy colors and the exaggeration Rameau included within the rating as an instance the world’s mercilessness – but additionally the finer nuances reminding us that there’s hope.
A advantageous and extremely pleasurable night at Zurich Opera led to enthusiastic applause for the singers, the conductor, the orchestra and the manufacturing staff.
Michael Fischer
Manufacturing:
Director – Jetske Mijnssen
Set – Ben Baur
Costumes – Hannah Clark
Lighting – Bernd Purkrabek
Choreography – Kinsun Chan
Choir – Janko Kastelic
Dramaturgy – Kathrin Brunner
Solid:
Platée – Mathias Vidal
Jupiter – Evan Hughes
Junon – Katia Ledoux
Satyre / Cithéron – Renato Dolcini
Thespis – Alasdair Kent
Mercure – Nathan Haller
La Folie – Mary Bevan
Momus – Theo Hoffman
Clarine / Thalie – Anna El-Khashe
Amour – Tania Lorenzo
First Maenad – Gloria Gottschalk
Second Maenad – Katarzyna Rzymska
Dancers – Dustin Eliot, Steven Forster, Sina Friedli, Federica Porleri, Valerio Porleri, Juliette Rahon, Valentina Rodenghi and Roberto Tallarigo
