Orphée aux Enfers - Aix 2009

Orphée aux Enfers

opéra-bouffe en 2 actes et 4 tableaux de Jacques Offenbach

livret d'Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy

Eurydice - Pauline Courtin

Orphée - Julien Behr

Aristée/Pluton - Mathias Vidal

Jupiter - Vincent Deliau

L'Opinion Publique - Marie Gautrot

John Styx - Jerome Billy

Mercure - Paul Cremazy

Cupidon - Emmanuelle de Negri

Diane - Soula Parassidis

Vénus - Marie Kalinine

Minerve - Estelle Kaique

Junon - Sabine Revault d'Allonnes

Choeur du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Camerata Salzburg

Conductor - Alain Altinoglu

Director - Yves Baunesne

Aix, Théâtre de l'Archevêché

Arte broadcast, July 16, 2009

Acte 2, Jupiter

I'm afraid the production of Yves Baunesne leaves me with yet another bad taste in the mouth.

The music of Offenbach is already cliché as it is, as well as the libretto, and addind every other vaudevillesque cliché there is quite quickly disconnected by from the performance.

The facts that every cast member (Julien Behr as Orphée excepted)has such a limited stage presence and that the actors' direction is so rough sure amplifies the mediocrity of the production.

Acte 2, 3e tableau, l'Olympe

"Ce formidable bordel!" (to use Ionesco's words) is what this production really is, constantly shifting between boring tricks alla Scribe and boring grotesque tricks (Jupiter metamorphosis into a fly in Act 2, the choice of the director to have Eurydice say the spoken dialogues with a strong "Titi"-Parisian accent - quite absurd considering the gap with the music, ...).

Both the sets, the lights and the costumes are also a disappointment, beeing anything but original, edgy, smart or enlightning.

Acte 2, 4e tableau

The musical interpretation is equally as bad, singers, orchestra and conductor included.

Most of these young singers haven't developed yet, and their technique is lacking some basics (intensity and projection mainly); the conduction of Alain Altinoglu I also disliked, lacking emotion, color and brightness (the strings were especially to blame), and the overall tempo did remind me more of military marches than of Offenbach's usual spiciness.

Overall a production to forget.

A few words about Py's Idomeneo - Aix 2009

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Idomeneo, Re di Creta

Idomeneo Richard Croft
Idamante Yann Beuron
Ilia Sophie Karthäuser
Elettra Mireille Delunsch

Rundfunkchor Berlin
Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble
Direction musicale Marc Minkowski

Mise en scène et lumières Olivier Py
Scénographie et costumes Pierre André Weitz

Aix-en-Provence - 10th July 2009 Arte live broadcast

Olivier Py's production of Mozart's Idomeneo for the 2009 Aix Festival, though pleasant and easy to follow, leaves me a bit disappointed. The staging, a mix of Pierre Audi-like aesthetics and Nikolaus Lehnhoff's iconography, lacks depth and is nothing close to a groundbreaking experience. Fantastic craftsmanship is on display continuously, but the staging remains desperately emotionless. And Neptune and his kitchen knife and hairy chest fails to bring any edginess to it. The ideas are all well-thought and well-polished, but the sets and costumes, all in B&W, create a cold scenery that is reinforced by the lack of any truly vivid actor's direction.

More on the subject:
- "Olivier Py en fait un peu trop avec sa mise en scène d'"Idoménée" de Mozart, à Aix-en-Provence", Le Monde, Marie-Aude Roux
- "Festival d'Aix: Olivier Py débute dans Mozart avec un "Idoménée" bien bâti", Le Point
- "L’«Idoménée» choc d’Olivier Py", Libération, Eric Dahan
- "La frénésie d'“Idoménée” selon Py", Télérama, Fabienne Pascaud
- Olivier Py's interview by France Soir

Aix 2009

The program of the Aix en Provence festival next summer (June 27 to July 31) is now available online. 4 operas will be performed (prices range from 50€ to 350€):

• Götterdämmerung, R.Wagner, part of the current ring production (also played in 2006 in Salzburg), Sir Simon Rattle conducting, Stéphane Braunschweig staging, with Ben Heppner, Anne Sofie von Otter and the Berliner Philharmoniker
• Idomeneo, re di Creta, W.A.Mozart, Marc Minkowski conducting his Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble, Olivier Py's staging, with Richard Croft, Sophie Karthäuser and Mireille Delunsch
• Orphée aux enfers, J.Offenbach, new production of Yves Beaunesne, Alain Altinoglu conducting the Camerata Salzburg
• Die Zauberflöte, W.A.Mozart, René Jacobs conducting this William Kentridge's staging that premiered in Brussels in 2005

On the concert front, some big names should boost the sales: Magdalena Kozena (July 6 & 10), Pierre Boulez conducting the Berliner Philarmoniker, with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (July 5), Joyce DiDonato with her Furore tour, Christophe Rousset conducting his Talens Lyriques ensemble (July 27) and Simon Rattle conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker (July 8 with Lang Lang and July 11). Online booking started yesterday.

Aix 2008

Photo Festival d'Aix en Provence

Each year, I keep hoping I might find something interesting in the Aix-en-Provence Summer festival. Each year, I'm proven wrong. The upcoming 60th edition is no exception.

The program includes 6 operas, none of which I'm interesting in.

• Wagner's Siegfried
  
• Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte
• Mozart's Zaide
• Haendel's Belshazzar
  
• Dusapin's Passion (world premiere)
  
• Haydn's L'infedeltà delusa

After the staging in 2006 of Das Rheingold and last summer of Die Walküre, Stéphane Braunschweig comes back to direct this year's Siegfried. Conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker once again is Simon Rattle (cast yet to be revealed but Ben Heppner should be there, alongside with Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde, and Burkhard Ulrich).

On the Mozart's front, Christophe Rousset will conduct Cosi, whereas Peter Sellars will direct Zaide in this 2006 production of the Wiener Festwochen.

René Jacobs will take care of Haendel; I have never understood how this former countertenor familiar with baroque can have such a boring way of conducting an already very boring music such as Haendel's. But the audience liking it this way, is even odder. Anyway. This new production, a joined effort with the Berliner Staatsoper unter den Linden and the Innsbrück Festival, will be directed by Christof Nel.

The Dusapin's attempt (world premiere June 29, 2008) is based on a libretto (also written by Dusapin) inspired from Monteverdi, so I guess this remote lineage is enough to schedule this contemporary opera in a baroque & German operas Festival.

Conducting Haydn's L'infedeltà delusa will be Jérémie Rhorer, at the helm of his orchestra, Le Cercle de l'Harmonie.


Opera aside, Karita Mattila will give a concert on July 22 (program to be added) to end the festival; Sylvain Cambreling will conduct the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg in Messaien's Turangalila-Sinfonie on July 5; William Christie will perform Purcell's The Fairy Queen with the singers and orchestra from the European Academy of Music on July 18; Simon Rattle will conduct an all-Haydn program with the Berliner Philharmoniker on July 6, as well as a Brahms/Bartok/Dvorak concert on June 30.

Tickets will be available online from January 23, 7pm.

Fuck Les Chorégies d'Orange

Seriously.

We have two decent Lyric Summer Festivals in France.

Aix-en-Provence for starters, for lovers of operas I can't stand: Monteverdi, Mozart, Wagner...
Therefore I really don't care that they have a fantastic new concert hall, or about the quality of casts and directors they choose.

So I'm left with Les Chorégies d'Orange.
Stuck, I should say.


OK, the operas they play (two each year) are obviously chosen to seduce mass audiences; Gounod's Faust and Carmen for 2008, Il Trovatore and Puccini's Butterfly this summer; Aïda and Lucia di Lammermoor in 2006 (complete list here).
It's mainstream opera all the way, but that's ok 'cause I'm into Verdi, Gounod, Donizetti...

But enough is enough.
Seriously.

They need to upgrade.
Drastically.

Aïda, 2006, © Grand Angle Orange

The stage direction is as bad as can be expected when there's no stage direction.
The sets are non-existant so the stage is just desperately empty (thank God for the Romans by the way, or else there wouldn't even be a stage).

The costumes are way too conventional and boring.

And then, of course, the conductor chosen each year is either the one that couldn't understand the score any worse or Michel Plasson (not much better).


Let's not forget about the chorus.
Historically, the chorus is made of various chorus from around the country, assembled into a reasonable size chorus for the huge Roman theater they sing in. That's roughly 50 men and 50 women.

Please forget about history.
Some things have to change.
The chorus has to go.
For a professionnal one.

No offense to Avignon, Toulon, Metz or any other remote city they come from.
But with a group of second class singers, chances are when you assemble them together they will suck.
Well, they do.
A lot.

Aïda, 2006, © Grand Angle Orange

And finally the cast.
Can we please stop with Roberto Alagna?
Seriously?

He's there every single year (2007 for Manrico in Il Trovatore, 2006 for Ramadès in Aïda, 2005 for La Bohème, 2004 for Carmen...).
I get it that he's the only opera singer French people care about (especially since his shitty tribute album to Luis Mariano). But he's just the ghost of the great tenor he used to be.
And you know what? I don't pitty him a bit.
He should have worked instead of going to every single bullshit TV program he was invited to, destroying all kinds of songs (examples on YouTube here and there).
Plus, I don't forgive him for the Scala incident. This guy has no respect whatsoever for the public, he's way too egomaniac.

I might sound harsh, but seriously people.
Les Chorégies d'Orange suck.



For a budget of about €450.000 for two productions each year, we should have other singers than Alagna, a world-class conductor, a decent chorus and a spectacular staging.

We have none of that.
The French system really sucks, sometimes.




Further readings:
Photos of the past productions here, history of the festival here (also in English here).

YouTube extracts (please enjoy the costumes, stage direction and the work of the conductor):

• 2007, Il Trovatore, "Di quella pira"
  
• 2006, Lucia di Lammermoor, sextet, end of act I
• 2005, La Bohème, "Dunque e propio finita", with Angela Gheorghiu
  
• 2004, Carmen, end of act III