![]() ![]() Une réussite exemplaire dont il ne faudra pas rater la reprise au Châtelet de Paris dans le cadre de son annuel festival des régions.* Compositeur majeur, à la fois contemporain de Mozart – il était son cadet de quatre ans – et de Beethoven – né dix ans après lui -, injustement boudé par divers oukases de ces modes qui se suivent puis se démodent, il était l’homme de la maestria absolue, héritier de Gluck, mozartien dans l’air du temps, adepte de la rigueur classique et annonciateur visionnaire du romantisme. Avec, pour défendre le rôle-titre, l’éblouissante performance d’Anna Caterina Antonacci, couronnant une réalisation de tout premier plan, tant au niveau de l’Orchestre National du Capitole dirigé par Evelino Pidò, qu’à celui des mises en scène, décors et costumes signés Yannis Kokkos. L’événement du mois, sinon de la saison, vient d’avoir lieu à Toulouse avec la nouvelle production d’un chef d’œuvre trop rarement joué : Medea de Luigi Cherubini. Their disagreement over a youth taken into the service of the queen, yet desired by Oberon, fuels an initial conflict that - by the time of its resolution - will bear on the fates of the other pairs of young lovers in the piece as well. Soon after the start of the first of these the royal fairy couple, Oberon and Tytania, enter in formal dress. Chicago Opera Theater’s presentation divides the action and emotional entanglements of Britten’s three acts into two parts. The movements of all the characters in this production are matched consistently to an orchestral or vocal expression, emphasizing thus the union of choreography with lyrical and declamatory effect. Already from the subdued opening accompanied by muted strings an underlying tension is evident in the darting figure of Puck, a spoken role assumed in this production by the actor Jason Griffin. In its recent performances of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Chicago Opera Theater affirms its reputation for carefully gauged and well cast productions. ![]() Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Chicago Opera Theater ![]() All other dramatic extremes - be it fevered love declaration, jealous rage or elegant death - was conducted in an almost balletic minimalism of physical effort. It was the supporting actors/dancers, Kabuki-like, who supplied the human activity - including a memorable “a capella” rhythmic foot-stamping war-interlude. If the singers were disadvantaged physically by what they were wearing, they didn’t seem to show it - although to be fair none had to move at anything more than a dignified pace. The heavy, stylised, costumes - extravagant to the point of caricature - are in themselves a theatrical tool that both enable and yet also constrain the drama of this young Mozart’s early work. The time is about 65 BC and the world is one of an old Asia Minor versus a rising Rome, with an ageing King Mitridate fighting off both martial and sexual invasions of his territories. ![]() Essentially, director Graham Vick and designer Paul Brown and their team created a world, half historic, half fantastic, and one is left with a visual memory replete with starkly simple blood-red sets, kaleidoscopically coloured bizarrely shaped costumes and arrowed shafts of silver light, almost painfully reflecting from armoured breastplates. To this newcomer’s eye it is still both amazingly original in its design and concept, and yet also oddly frustrating. I can only dimly imagine how this singular and arresting production was first greeted at Covent Garden back in 1991. ![]()
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