Splendid Ideas in Music and Vision 11 luglio

Splendid Ideas
Stravinsky's 'Le Rossignol'
impresses GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Whilst the staging of the first opera in the 2010 Aix Festival (Don Giovanni) has had a mixed reception (see Nearly a Male Lulu, 10 July 2010), the festival's second opera (Stravinsky's Le Rossignol) enchanted the audience both dramatically and musically: on 7 July 2010, when I saw the performance on which this account is based, the curtains calls included a fifteen minute standing ovation.
It is a rare opportunity to see a staging of Le Rossignol for several reasons: its duration (three Acts within a total of fifty minutes) makes it difficult to fill an opera evening; based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen, it involves a large number of characters with a bird -- a nightingale -- as its protagonist; the music, composed between 1907 and 1914, encompasses several styles with the second and the third Acts fundamentally different from the first Act. In 1910 (with L'Oiseau de Feu) and more forcefully in 1913 (with Le Sacre du Printemps), the composer had changed style drastically: the gentle Russian fairy tale atmosphere had been replaced by the evocation of wild and wide primitive Russian dances. Also, he had become more interested in ballet and acrobatic expressions.
Stravinsky was himself conscious of such a divergence, but left things unchanged, even when in 1962 he reviewed the score once more: he felt that his earlier 1907 style, bound as it was to lyrical impressionism, seemed to him well suited to the delicate poetic atmosphere of the first Act. It is useful to underline that for Igor Stravinsky, opera took second place in musical theatre, with the first place belonging firmly to ballet. Although he composed extensively for the stage, his only operas in the traditional sense are Le Rossignol, almost at the beginning of his career (in 1914), and The Rake's Progress, nearly at the end (1951) with a final foray into opera for television (The Flood) whilst he was toying with the twelve note row system in the 1960s.

Olga Peretyatko in Act II of Stravinsky's 'Le Rossignol' at Aix-en-Provence. Photo © 2010 Elisabeth Carecchio
Andersen's fairy tale revolves around a nightingale conquering disease and death in an imaginary Imperial China. It is quite well known as standard fare for primary school readers. In the Aix-en-Provence production, a joint venture with the Opéra National de Lyon, the Canadian Opera Company and Amsterdam's De Nederlandse Opera, the short and delightful work is presented by Robert Lepage (stage director) and his team (Carl Fillion, Martin Curry, Martin Genest, Philippe Beau, Etienne Boucher and Mara Gottler) as a Vietnamese puppet show in a Far East land: the puppets are moved by the singers (Olga Peretyatko, Elena Semenova, Marijana Mijanovic, Edgaras Montvidas, Ilya Bannik and Yuri Vorobiev).

A scene from Act II of Stravinsky's 'Le Rossignol' at Aix-en-Provence. Photo © 2010 Elisabeth Carecchio
The singers, on their own account, are in a huge 70,000 litre swimming pool (the orchestra pit) while Kazushi Ono conducts the Lyon Opera Orchestra on the stage, and two small scenes are set on the left and the right sides of the pool. The impact is great too because the water molds the voices and instruments and makes the atmosphere even more poetic (as in Tan Dun's recent works).

Ilya Bannik in Act III of Stravinsky's 'Le Rossignol' at Aix-en-Provence. Photo © 2010 Elisabeth Carecchio
To this brilliant idea, another ingenious device is to be added. Le Rossignol forms the second part of a double bill (and of a two hour and twenty minute operatic evening). The first is not another short Stravinsky opera (like L'Histoire du Soldat) from almost the same period (but with almost no orchestra) or the strikingly different Oedipus Rex (with an orchestra of nearly the same size as that used in Le Rossignol). Even though either one of these choices would have had a musical rationale, Kazushi Ono and Robert Lepage had an even better idea: to stage the pantomime Le Renard with its delightful popular manner and impudent touches of burlesque, improvisation, changing meters, endless rhythmic subtleties and bold digressions from tonality (and its ostinato passages).
The staging is on the shore of the pool/orchestra pit with the singers on stage but with the action being shown through ombres chinoises and the shadow of acrobats behind a screen. The carefree and unconventional Le Renard is married with Stravinksy's Russian Songs cycles, linked with each other and with the Trois Pièces pour Clarinette (magnificently played by Jean-Michel Bertelli).
In short, an evening full of splendid ideas to make excellent music the basis for a dramatic action where fairy tales come to life thanks to the magnificent lighting and costumes (of the puppets as well as of the singers), Ono's detailed rhythmical precision and the superb vocal cast (especially the sensual soprano Olga Peretyatko and the sumptuous tenor Edgaras Montvidas).
A real festival event. It remains to be seen how it will fare in normal opera houses.
Copyright © 12 July 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

AIX-EN-PROVENCE
IGOR STRAVINSKY
LE ROSSIGNOL
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
CHINA
RUSSIA
FRANCE
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