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2. Baroque Stagecraft. This is the first of three classes devoted to the staging of opera before Mozart. But whereas the other two will involve updating of some kind, the directors of the two productions in today's class make specific reference to baroque stage practice, whether simply recreating a performance of the period, or using the style in quotes, as it were, in postmodern fashion. The operas themselves virtually bookend the baroque, from 1676 to 1762.

The "tragedy in music" Atys by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–87) and Philippe Quinault was premiered privately before Louis XIV in 1676 and at the Royal Opera in Paris later the same year. The first modern revival, by Les Arts Florissants, began as a touring production in 1986, directed by Jean-Marie Villégier and conducted by William Christie. It was later revived with increased budgets and recorded on video. The plot, taken from Ovid’s Fasti, is obscure to us today and was probably obscure to the original audiences also. We shall watch the start of the Prologue—an allegorical tribute to the King—and the sommeil scene from Act III, a French baroque specialty in which the principal character is lulled to sleep.

Orfeo ed Euridice, by Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714–87) and Raniero de Calzabigi, was written for Vienna in 1762 and revised later for Paris. It was the first of Gluck’s "reform operas," in which he tried to purge the medium of baroque excess. In fact, it has only one major role, Orpheus himself, plus generous parts for chorus and dancers, and much smaller soprano roles for Eurydice and Cupid (Amor). Originally written for castrato, the title role is now most often performed by countertenor, as in the production we shall hear, featuring the American singer Bejun Mehta, staged by Ondrej Havelka at the baroque theatre in Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic, and filmed by him to use the spaces around the stage as well as the stage itself. You can hear how the countertenor voice sounds in the opera's most famous aria, Che farò seza Euridice?, sung here by Philippe Jaroussky and presented with music and text. rb.

 
The script, videos, and images will be posted immediately after class.

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Q AND A

Were any special instruments required in early opera?
The modern orchestra was pretty much in place by the earlier 18th century, albeit using natural gut on the string instruments and fewer or no keys on the winds. But the 17th century used many different ones. Look at the players in the background of the image from the Lully below: the plucked instrument is a lute; the man in the background is holding a wooden flute (or maye an oboe) without keys; and the woman has a recorder.
Onstage musicians in Lully's ATYS

What voice type did Gluck write Orfeo for?
A castrato—a choirboy surgically altered before puberty to preserve the purity of his unbroken voice, but ally it with the stamina and lung power of a grown man. Most often, this procedure resulted only in mediocrity (and infertility), but the few successful castrati were the superstars of their day and fabulously wealthy. Orpheus is most commonly sung today by countertenors (normal men who have developed the power and flexibility of their falsetto voices), but also occasionally by tenors and even baritones. However, the more usual solution from about 1840 to 1970 was to give the role to a female alto en travesti (in male costume). I made this little video illustrating the various solutions to Orfeo; there is also an excellent explanation of the countertenor voice here. We will encounter the question again in two weeks’ time with Handel, all of whose operas required castrato stars (and often castrato supporting roles as well).

What was the difference between Villégier’s and Havelka’s use of the Baroque stage?
The main difference is that Havelka used a baroque theater and Villégier didn’t. Atys was originally produced in a grand hall of the palace, and Villégier, whose production concept probably started with the costumes and choreography, aims for total immersion in the court world, but an entire avoidance of special effects. Havelka, on the other hand, delights in the baroque theater as box of tricks, much as though playing with a toy stage. Everything in his film emphasizes the artificiality of the stage, right down to the pasted-on smiles of the singers and dancers. As to his reason for doing this, see the next question.

Why did Havelka end his film as he did?
Frankly, I don’t really know, but I am pretty sure it has to do with the artificiality I mentioned earlier. It seems obvious that this Orpheus was not a regular character in the pretty opera production. He was costumed differently; he wandered the theater spaces freely and was not confined to the stage; he both began and ended outside the action. But who was he? The modern American singer, or the timeless avatar of loss whose meaning cannot be reduced to such a simplistic stage fiction? More the second than the first, I think. I can even see him as a poet, writing the opera to make sense of some grief of his own, but ultimately rejecting it as inadequate. One of the class members suggested that he had not yet completed the time that grieving requires—the opera was merely a quick fix—and this makes much sense to me.

On a different tack, I was also struck by the long pause before he embraces Euridice and the music of the finale begins. There is something very like it just before the end of The Marriage of Figaro, as we shall hear next month. Love is a hostage to fortune; it makes you vulnerable. Once hurt, you come to wonder if you can risk it all again. Mostly, we do, but there may come a time when it is no longer worth it. Speaking for myself, I found that pause between one page and the next far more pregnant than anything Havelka did after he music was over.

 
VIDEO LINKS

Both videos shown in class are available complete, but neither has English titles. I would recommend looking at the trailer for Atys, as it both captures the flavor of the production and shows scenes we did not see in class. Only the aria from the Cesky Krumlov production of Orfeo ed Euridice is available with titles.

On the other hand, since this is a course on Opera Production, I include a large selection of alternative Orfeo productions; I suggest you scroll through and sample a few minutes of each, somewhere in the middle at random. Unless otherwise noted, you can assume they use the Vienna version of the score (the one we watched), have a countertenor hero, and no English titles. They are in chronological order; here are a few notes on each:

Unfortunately, the Parma production will probably have been removed from the web by the date of this class, which is a pity, as it is the one I would most recommend to set against the Havelka for a complete viewing. Failing that, I would go with one or other of the 2018 ones.

ATYS
  Full production   Complete through Act III
Acts IV and V
— Prologue (cued to start in class)
— Sommeil (cued to start in class)
  Related clips   Trailer
Full sommeil scene
Christie interview (largely about funding; English titles)
ORFEO ED EURIDICE
  Cesky Krumlov film   Complete
— aria only (with titles)
OTHER ORFEOS
  London 1991   Complete
Act I only (with titles)
  Paris 2000   Complete (Wilson production; female Orfeo)
  Munich 2003   Complete (Berlioz edition, female Orfeo)
  Wuppertal 2008   Part 1 (ballet by Pina Bausch)
Part 2
  Paris 2018   Complete
  La Scala 2018   Complete (Paris version; tenor hero)
  Parma 2026   Complete (with titles)
           
IMAGES
The thumbnails below cover the slides shown in class, though there may be a few small discrepancies.
Click the thumbnail to see a larger image.
Click on the right or left of the larger picture to go forward or back, or outside it to close.
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 

 
ARTISTS

Here are brief bios of the composers and directors considered in the class, listed in order of birth.

Jean Baptiste Lully, 1632–87. French composer of Italian origin.
 
Lully became master of music to Louis XIV, writing music in all genres, but most especially operas and ballets. His operas include Alceste (1675), Atys (1676), Persée (1682), and Armide (1686). For most of his career, no new music could be performed in France without his approval.
Christoph Willibald von Gluck, 1714–87. German composer.
 
After training in Italy, he accepted a position in Vienna in 1754, where he embarked on his reforms of the old opera seria. He moved to Paris in 1770. Most of his operas, whether in Italian or French, have mythological themes, and his Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) and Echo et Narcissse (1779) have Ovidian ones.
Jean-Marie Villégier, 1937–2024. French opera director.
 
A French theatre director and pedagogue, he made his first collaboration with William Christie and Les Ats Florissants in 1986 with Lully's Atys, a production that marked the revival of baoque opera in France. From then on, he alternated equally between spoken and sung theatre.
William Christie, 1944– . American-French conductor.
 
Christie studied art history at Harvard then harpsichord at Yale with Ralph Kirkpatrick. After teaching for a while at Dartmouth, he moved to France to avoid the Vietnam War draft. He became a French citizen in 1995, was elected to the Académie des Beaux Arts in 2008, and received the Légion d'Honneur in 2012. These awards are in recognition of his unparalleled contribution to French music, founding Les Arts Florissants in 1979, and going on to perform and record most of the forgotten masterpieces of the French baroque.
Ondrej Havelka, 1954– . Czech singer, actor, and director.
 
Havelka's main claim to fame is as a jazz singer and swing band leader. But he has also worked as an actor, as a film maker, and even as an opera director in his 2014 film of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. You can sample his work with his band The Melody Makers here.

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