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 classe make specific reference to baroque stage practice,
whether simply recreating a performance of the period, or using the stlye 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 below 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.
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:
- London 1991. Orfeo as rock musician, against dark but fascinating photo projections
- Paris 2000. Almost abstract Robert Wilson production, with female Orfeo.
- Munich 2003. Berlioz edition; female Orfeo. Very strange production, with comic elements.
- Wuppertal 2008. Pina Bausch ballet, with opera on sound-track only. A classic for a reason.
- Paris 2018. Robert Carsen production: minimalist, modern-dress, always effective.
- La Scala 2018. Paris version, with tenor hero. Interesting use of changing stage levels.
- Parma 2026. Dark production by Shirin Neshat, using contemporary imagery in an always-evocative way. English titles.
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.
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| 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. |
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Here are brief bios of the composers and directors considered in the class, listed in order of birth.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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