ACIS AND GALATEA – REVIEW OF 2024 OPERA ATELIER EXQUISITE PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Seeing Acis and Galatea by George Frideric Handel at the gorgeous Elgin Theatre in Toronto is like being handed a bouquet of gorgeous roses by a knight dressed in finery or a beautiful lady in an elegant gown.  It is a beautiful opera, a wonderful love story and in the hands of Opera Atelier’s  co-artistic directors Marshall Pynkoski  and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg it is much more than even that.

It was Handel’s first work in English and was first produced in 1718 and went through numerous changes but its 1732 version seems to have carried the day. There is no agreement as to what it is and it has been called a masque, a pastoral, a serenata and other names but who cares. In the hands of Pynkoski and Zingg it becomes an opera-ballet.

The work is based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses and involves the beautiful love of the mortal shepherd Acis (marvelous tenor Antonin Rondepierre) and the demi-goddess water nymph Galatea (superb soprano (Meghan Lindsay). Their pure love is suffused with sexual desire. The beauties of the plain of Arcadia are not enough to cool her love (i.e. sexual desire) and the singing birds “kindle fierce desire” in her. Acis is looking for her and imagines her bathing in crystal fountains. He sees love panting on her breast that swells with soft desire. This is beautiful orgasmic attraction.  

Acis and Galatea in 2024 Opera Atelier production. Photo: Bruce Zinger 

The Chorus (The Nathaniel Dett Chorale) steps in to announce Fate’s decree that Acis and Galatea’s love will not last. The cyclops Polyphemus (funny and resonant bass-baritone Douglas Williams) feels the same way about Galatea in an uncouth and barbaric way. We can descent to crude language with him – he is just horny. Damon (tenor Blaise Rantoanina)   pours cold water on human passion and even instructs Polyphemus on how to woo Galatea. 

Polyphemus does kill Acis and we hear some of the most beautiful grieving by the Chorus and Galatea. Acis is turned into a river god which provides some consolation to Galatea and immortality to her lover.

The arias, duets and recitatives are almost all accompanied by a dozen members of The Atelier Ballet corps dancing in their gorgeous gowns. The singing and music are beautiful enough but the dances, choreographed by Zingg are a significant, added pleasure That is why I say Acis and Galatea is an opera-ballet. The dancing like the singing is exquisite.  

Acis the shepherd wrongly tending goats instead of sheep! 

Photo: Bruce Zinger

Rondepierre and Lindsay sing with delicacy, erotic desire, and passion Douglas Williams  is played for laughs. He is a lumbering oaf with primitive sexual urges but manages to provide some laughs before the tragic end of Acis.

About twenty members of the Tafelmusik orchestra are crammed in what passes for a pit and conducted by Christopher Bagan. They produce all the beautiful sounds that Handel composed for them.

The set and costumes by Gerard Gauci enhance the beauty of the production and the result is a delightful night at the opera

Postscript I must add a comment about the opening scene. As the action is about to begin a bunch of goats go across the stge. Okay, they are not real but they have no business being there. Acis is a shepherd, a herder of sheep not of goats. In that case he would be a goatherd. Goats are usually found on mountains and not on the verdant plains of Arcadia where Acis and Galatea live and not, heaven forfend, near Mount Etna in Sicily. I state this with the authority of the only one in the audience who has first-hand experience as a (bad) sheep herder and suggest that in the future the faux pas must be corrected. 

__________

Acis and Galatea by George Frideric Handel, presented by Opera Atelier, played from October 24 to 27, 2024 at the Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge Street, Toronto. www.operaatelier.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press.

LA CLEMENZA DI TITO – REVIEW OF 2024 PACIFIC OPERA PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is a city of fewer than one hundred thousand residents, that has a rich and civilized ambience and a lively cultural life. Pacific Opera Victoria produces three operas per season and they are given four performances each. With the Victoria Symphony providing the music in the lovely 1400-seat Royal Theatre that represents a highly commendable cultural achievement.

Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Portman’s The Little Prince and Verdi’s Rigoletto are the operas offered in October 2024, February and April 2025 respectively. Judicious choices.

La Clemenza was put together in 1791 by an ill and broke Mozart. He accepted the commission to write an opera for the coronation of a king of Bohemia while he was working on the Magic Flute and La Clemenza may be described as a quickie. New York’s Metropolitan Opera did not produce it until 1984 and that should give you a good idea of its popularity.

Pacific Opera Victoria gives the work a redoubtable production sung by an all-Canadian cast that has many virtues including and especially being thoroughly enjoyable. The opera has six characters, four male and two female but in keeping with 18th century practices two of the men’s roles are sung by women. Remember the castrati?

As Tito, tenor Andrew Haji gives a commendable performance as an emperor who wants to be decent even in the face of treachery and attempted assassination by a friend. The much-buffeted man rises above treachery and espouses virtue especially in his signature aria “Se all'impero, amici Dei.”  Haji is imperious and tender as he expresses his credo that if he cannot be decent, he does not want the empire. A convincing performance in general and of the tough aria.

Vitellia is a central role in the opera by being evil and bitchy. She is the daughter of the late Emperor Vitellius who was deposed by Tito’s father and she wants the throne. She orders her lover and Tito’s friend Sesto to assassinate Tito because he will not marry her. Then she finds out that Tito has dumped his prospective wife and calls the assassination off and then reinstates it. Soprano Tracy Cantin with wonderful intonations and conviction gets her way as Vitellia. When she sings “Deh, se piacer mi vuoi” (If you want to please me”) she is not thinking of the first thing that may come to your mind. And when she tells her lover “Non piu di fiori” (No more flowers) she is not worried about the cost of roses. She wants murder and Cantin gives a wonderful performance.  

Vitellia and Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito in Victoria

Mezzo soprano Taylor Raven sings the role of the hapless Sesto, a friend of Tito (whom he agrees to assassinate) and in love with the wonderful Vitellia! His aria “Parto, parto” (I’m going, I’m going) gives a clue to his character that Raven sings well. But Raven reaches the pinnacle as Sesto in the beautiful aria “Deh, per questo istante solo” (Ah, for this single moment) where he begs Tito for forgiveness. Raven sings gorgeously and melts Tito into clemency under difficult circumstances. It is perhaps the most beautiful and moving aria in the opera done superbly.

Soprano Reilly Nelson puts on pants and lends her lovely voice to Annio who is a friend of Sesto and in love with his sister Servilia. But when Tito says he wants her for his wife, he steps back nobly. Again, a well-sung performance. Servilia is the nice but brave woman who tells Tito who wants to marry her that she is already spoken for, he backs off. Well done as singer and character. Bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus plays Publio,  the Captain of the Praetorian Guard, with relatively little to do but Mozart does not deprive him of an opportunity to sing. “Tardi s’avvede d’un tradimento” (He is late to notice betrayal) describes Tito as an honorable man who believes people are incapable of disloyalty. Hegedus sings with beautiful sonority and with no rancor after he arrests Sesto. 

High praise for conductor Giuseppe Petraroia and the Victoria Symphony. The Chorus did not seem that successful on occasion. Too much movement on and off the stage?

Director Jennifer Tarver did superb work with an opera that sometimes seems stitched together. Tarver kept it going well. Set and Costume Designer Camellia Koo did  superb job with a single set of two yellow circles above and something similar below. But the costumes left me scratching my head. We have women in pants roles. Fine. But Vitellia is a woman played by a woman. Why is she wearing pants? With the other women, we know they are women but why not let us pretend they are men. Emphasizing their chests is not the way. It is a small point but worth making.

I make no secret of how thoroughly I enjoyed the production and with some luck I may see more products in the beautiful capital of British Columbia.
____________________
La Clemenza di Tito by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (music) and libretto by Pietro Metastasio revised by Caterino Mazzola opened on October 16 and will play until October 20 at the Royal Theatre, Victoria B.C. For more information: www.pacificopera.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE – REVIEW OF 2024 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance is this year’s “light” entertainment offered by the Glimmerglass Festival. We get a vibrant, enthusiastic, well-sung and simply delightful production of a classic operetta that is near the top of its genre.

These “pirates”, in case you have not met them before, are flying their skull and cross flag not in the Caribbean or South Pacific or the high seas. They ply their profession off the coast of Cornwall, England and they follow a strict moral code that leaves them broke. For example, they will not steal from or interfere with orphans. And they quickly find out that all English merchant ships are manned by orphans.

One of the pirates is a young man called Frederic (Christian Mark Gibbs) who was supposed to be apprenticed as a pilot but his nurse Ruth (Eve Gagliotti) made a phonetic error and apprenticed him as a pirate! (Where is Professor Higgins when you need him?) Frederic is bound to serve on the pirate ship until his 21^st birthday and he respects and abides by his duty and waits for his 21^st birthday to be discharged. But he was born in  a leap year and has a birthday every four years on February 29. Oops!

We have a hero with a chronological disorder but also a hero who has not seen a pretty woman  until his eyes fall on Mabel (Elizabeth Sutphen) and he falls in love with her. She is not just a pretty face and a lovely voice but the daughter of  the very model of a Major-General Stanley (Troy Cook) which gives her class. 

 The Glimmerglass Festival 2024 Production of The Pirates 

of Penzance. Photo by Sofia Negron/The Glimmerglass Festival

The Pirates has the rigorous demands of an operetta. The plot is comic, farcical, bouncy and demands disciplined performances by the leads and the chorus. The patter songs sound wonderful but they are not easy to perform. The Glimmerglass Festival production under director and choreographer Sean Curran and conductor Joseph Colaneri with the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra and Chorus  put together and maintain a lively, funny and delightfully entertaining rhythm and pace.

Christian Mark Gibbs as the naïve, heroic and loveable Frederic has a superb tenor voice and we root for his upstanding respect for duty and his love for Mabel. Troy Cook gets the juicy role of Major-General Stanley and delivers the famous patter aria “I’m the Very Model of a Modern Major General.” It’s a long and tough slog getting all those rhymes and unfamiliar words in but Cook handles the whole thing with aplomb.

His daughter Mabel as the heroine who gets the heroic Frederic is exactly what the audience wants and precisely what the hero deserves. Ruth is another wonderful role and Ruth Gigliotti takes full advantage of its comic opportunities and vocal demands. Craig Irvin shines as the proud Pirate King.

The pretty young maidens make a beautiful chorus as do the policemen under their Sergeant (Joshua Thomas). Combined with the verve of the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra under Colaneri, we got a wonderful evening at the opera on the shores of Lake Otsego.

_____________________

The Pirates of Penzance by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan is being performed as part of the Glimmerglass Festival at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York. Tickets and information (607) 547-0700 or www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

LA CALISTO and ELIZABETH CREE - REVIEW OF 2024 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTIONS

 Reviewed by James Karas

LA CALISTO 

In 1651 when Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto premiered in Venice, opera had been around for only a bit more than fifty years. The subject that his librettist Giovanni Faustini chose was from Greek mythology which at the time was almost the sole source of plots and remains so today if to a much lesser extent.

La Calisto deals with the relationship among mortals, demigods and deities, a popular subject. In this case, Jupiter the chief god is in Arcadia and he sees the beautiful nymph Calisto. There is no polite way of saying it, but he wants her. Callisto is a follower of the goddess  Diana who is sworn to chastity and Jupiter cannot have what he wants. His son Mercury has an idea. Why doesn’t Jupiter change into a Diana-look-alike and attempt to seduce Calisto? Great idea and not only does it work but Calisto enjoys it. Diana is furious and threatens to banish Calisto.

The opera has fifteen roles including Nature, Destiny, Eternity, a couple of Furies and five Dancers. The main characters are the beautiful nymph Calisto (Emilie Kealani), Diana and Jupiter-as-Diana (Taylor Raven), Endymion (Kyle Sanchez Tingzon), Juno (Eve Gigliotti), Jupiter (Craig Irvin), Mercury (Schyler Vargas), Linfea/Destiny (Winona Martin) and Pan (Namarea Randolph-Yosea.)  

Emilie Kealani as Calisto and Craig Irvin as Jove - 
Photo by Brent DeLanoy / The Glimmerglass Festival.

Jupiter’s fun with Calisto is ruined by his harridan wife Juno who complains about his serial infidelities and turns Calisto into  a bear. But love or maybe lust is a mainstay of the opera. The not-so-young Linfea reconsiders her devotion to virginity while the Younge Satyr (Amanda Sheriff) offers his services to her only to be unceremoniously rebuffed. The handsome shepherd Endymion is attractive but unsuccessful. Pan enters ready to go after Diana. There are conflicts and compromises and there is a happy ending! Calisti is turned into a star – Ursa Minor and all is over.

The opera is sung through with harpsicord and full orchestra accompaniment. The plot complications are not always clear but the beauty of Cavalli’s music and the singing never fail or falter. They provide a delightful performance.

The costumes by Carlos Soto are what you may imagine gods, nymphs and satyrs should look like and the sets are similarly opaque classical imagery.   

Rob Ainsley conducts the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra and brings out the best in Cavalli’s beautiful and varied music.

Mo Zhou directs the lustful gods and demigods and worshippers of chastity in a work that is from the earliest day of opera and worth  seeing today.

ELIZABETH CREE

We jump from 1651 to 2027 for Elizabeth Cree.  a new opera with music by Kevin Puts and libretto by Mark Campbell. The summary in the Glimmerglass Festival program provides the following information:

Set in London in the 1880s, this highly suspenseful and theatrical opera interweaves several narratives: the trial of the titular heroine for the poisoning of her husband; a series of brutal murders committed by a Jack the Ripper-style killer; the spirited world of an English music hall; and, finally, some “guest appearances” by luminaries from the Victorian Age.

The opera opens with a hanging of a woman on April 9, 1881. The production is very precise on dates and they are projected on the side of the stage. One can hardly ask for a more dramatic and startling opening. The prisoner is Elizabeth Cree and her crime is the murder of her husband.

The startling opening, the dramatic music and the promise of the summary should provide an outstanding performance. It did not. My reaction to the opera was one of almost complete inability to relate to the plot and consequently not enjoy the music or anything about the performance.

After the hanging scene, we go back to Elizabeth’s youth and to 1878 where she visits a music hall and is taken in by the performers. 

John Chest as John Cree and Tara Erraught as Elizabeth Cree. 
Photo by Brent DeLanoy/The Glimmerglass Festival.

Forward to 1880 where an entry in John Cree’s diary records the brutal murder of a prostitute. Panic strikes the city and a Scotland Yard inspector discovers that the victim went to the reading room of the British Museum. He interviews novelist George Gissing who is doing research there.  

It is February 1881 and Elizabeth's trial for the murder of her husband John Cree.

April 1878, back to the Music Hall where she performs and meets John Cree, playwright and critic. On September 12, 1880, we check John’s diary with an entry that he murdered a Hebrew scholar. Two days later Karl Marx is interviewed, February 1881 in court we hear the suggestion that Elizabet poisoned John. Back to the Music Hall in November 1878 where Elizabeth has become a star performer. 

By this time, we have gone through 12 scenes out of a total of 29. But we continue with more murders, more searches for the culprit and on a happier note John proposes marriage to Elizabeth and she accepts. There is a wedding party. The fun is over because Elizabeth refuses to consummate the marriage. John goes to the British Museum; sees Karl Marx and we have finished 20 scenes.

This summary alone makes it clear that I was bored out of my mind. The music distracted me  a bit from the plots, however many there are and from the constant changes in venue and time, but not enough. No doubt Puts and Campbell’s opera has many admirers but I do not count myself as one.

________________________

La Calisto by Francesco Cavalli and Elizabeth Cree by Kevin Puts continue in repertory at the 2024 Glimmerglass Festival in the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York. More information at: www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press 

PAGLIACCI - REVIEW OF 2024 GLIMMERGLASS PRODUCTION

  Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival is at it again with an interesting array of four operas (and a few other things that I did not see) on the beautiful shores of Lake Otsego near Cooperstown, New York. This year it offers something from near the birth of opera (Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto, 1651), a wildly entertaining operetta (Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, 1879), a classic opera (Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, 1892), and a new work (Kevin Puts’ Elizabeth Cree).

Pagliacci, as the whole world knows, is a melodramatic opera full of passion, jealousy, infidelity and in the end tragedy. It involves a troupe of travelling players where Nedda (Amber R. Monroe), the wife of the lead player Canio (Robert Stahley) is in love with Silvio (Jonathan Patton). Then we have the nasty Tonio (Troy Cook) who is in love or maybe lust with Nedda but is rudely rebuffed by her. He takes his revenge by telling her husband about her affair with Silvio.

Pagliacci receives a rich, robust and beautifully sung production directed by Brenna Corner. She uses a full chorus of adults and children that adds vocal splendor and dramatic fervor to the production. After all the commedia dell’arte play put on by the travelling players entertains a whole village and the production brings the village and the community on stage.  

Soprano Monroe as Nedda, the unhappy, unfaithful wife of Caino, has a rich and lustrous voice and can be passionate when expressing her love, fearless when approached by an unwanted lover and scared of her vicious husband. She sings with passion and unerring beauty.

 

Robert Stahley as Cania putting on his clown makeup.  

Photo; Sofia Negron, New York

Canio as the leader of the troupe and the jilted and understandably jealous husband crosses the line between acting and reality as his suffering overflows his ability to contain his furor as an actor, He is jealous as an actor and as a human being and the two become one with tragic consequences. It is not easy to sympathize with him except when he pours his heart out in “Vesti la giubba” with deeply felt agony amid the necessity to laugh like a clown. Outstanding singing and acting in an overall bravura performance by Stahley.

The playboy Silvio and the troubled Nedda sing passionately about their love and plan to escape. Their love duet is sung with vocal splendor and emotional depth. We can’t help but cheer and fear for the characters and admire the performances of Monroe and Patton. Kudos to Fran Daniel Laucerica for his performance as Peppe.

The set by Scenic Designer James Rotondo shows the ramshackle living conditions of the travelling players that changes into the playing area for the commedia dell’arte play being staged in the village. It works remarkably well.

Director Corner conceives the opera as a communal affair and makes use of the large chorus of adults and children to create and bring out that refreshing aspect. She uses people from Cooperstown and that is commendable for many reasons.

The Glimmerglass Orchestra conducted by Joseph Colaneri performed vigorously and was an aural delight.

The ennui of a seven-hour drive from Toronto to the shore of Otsego Lake disappeared.

__________________________

Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo is being performed seven times until August 18, 2024 as part of the Glimmerglass Festival at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York. Tickets and information (607) 547-0700 or www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press 

IPHIGENIA IN AULIS AND IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS – REVIEW OF 2024 AIX-EN-PROVENCE DOUBLE BILL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The House of Atreus has been a most generous contributor to writers and composers by providing them with fascinating subjects for works of art. Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and their children Electra, Iphigenia and Orestes are all ripe subjects for an endless number theatrical and operatic works. Christoph Willibald Gluck wrote two operas about the travails of one daughter, Iphigenia, in her youth in Aulis and twenty years later in Tauris.

The two operas were not intended to be performed as a double-bill, but the Aix-en-Provence Festival has decided to pair the two works as a sort of operatic marathon lasting five and a half hours. Yes, there is s upper break in the middle.

The drawing card for the double-bill is Dmitri Tcherniakov, the brilliant Russian director. He has given the two operas a similar production with an ant-war stance that one may want to relate to the Trojan War but in the modern-dress production, he is no doubt thinking of modern conflicts like the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The two operas are different but have much in common as well. They deal with the same main character in a life-and-death situation. At Aulis, Iphigenia has been chosen as a sacrifice to the goddess Diana for the latter to give favourable winds for Agamemnon to sail to Troy to rescue his brother’s wife Helen. Tcherniakov leaves Iphigenia’s fate somewhat ambiguous but if we find her in Tauris twenty years later, we know that she has been spared. 

Aix-en-Provence Festival. Photo: © Monika Rittershaus

In the barbaric kingdom of Tauris, Iphigenia has become a priestess in a temple dedicated to Diana, the goddess for whom she was slated to be sacrifices at Aulis. When two strangers arrive at Tauris, they are ordered to be killed, or one of them at least. The candidate for sacrifice at Aulis becomes a potential executioner in Tauris. At Aulis she is given as a sacrificial victim by her father. At Tauris she is ordered to murder unknowingly her brother Orestes or his best friend Pylades. She is in danger of being killed herself. It is thus possible to view the two operas as the different sides of a coin.

For the opening scene of Iphigenia in Aulis, Tcherniakov has devised a dream sequence played during the overture. We see a frantic Agamenon (done superbly by Canadian baritone Russell Braun) in a nightmare dreaming of his daughter’s execution. He dithers between killing his innocent daughter which will follow, of course, with the killing pf countless innocent Trojans. He decides to do both, but his daughter is probably saved by the goddess Diana for whose sake she was to be sacrificed.

Both operas are dominated by American soprano Corinne Winters as Iphigenia. She has a lovely voice and sings in a measured and mellifluous way in Aulis and much more forcefully in Tauris. It is a marathon performance by any definition, and she deserves a standing ovation. French soprano Veronique Gens sings the powerful Clytemnestra with marvellous tones. Australian tenor Alasdair Kent plays and sings a clownish Achilles. 

Soprano Soula Parassidis from Vancouver, a rising star, sang the role of the goddess Diana in both operas with vocal beauty.

In addition to directing, Tcherniakov designed the sets for both operas. For Aulis, the set consists of several playing areas constructed from steel posts with highly imaginative and changing lighting by Gleb Filshitinsky. The same style is used for Tauris, but it is in post-war ruins compared to its previous condition.

Baritone Florian Sempey as Orestes and tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac as Pylades competed in their display of manly friendship and willingness to die for one other. They displayed the same prowess vocally in their outstanding performances.

Finally let me praise, perhaps more than anyone, Emmanuelle Haïm conducting Le Concert d'Astrée. She was on her feet for the full five and a half hours but that is the least for which she deserves praise. She conducted exemplary performances of both operas in an unforgettable evening.

_________________________

Iphigenia in Aulis (Iphigenie en Aulide) and Iphigenia in Tauris (Iphigenie en Tauride) by Christoph Willibald Gluck opened on July 3 and will be performed in repertory until July 23, 2024, at the Grand Theatre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com

JAMES KARAS IS THE SENIOR EDITOR, CULTURE OF THE GREEK PRESS

SAMSON – REVIEW OF 2024 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Revised by James Karas 

Go to Aix-en-Provence and see the premiere of an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Voltaire called Samson. If you were in Paris in 1733 you could have almost seen it, but the church gave a resounding NO to the production and that was the end of it. Until 2024, that is. The history of the opera is almost as interesting as its first production this year at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

A few details will have to suffice. In 1734 Voltaire approached Rameau, the greatest composer of the time, to put together an opera. He completed the libretto and Rameau composed the score by midyear. The Catholic Church ruled that an opera on a religious subject was out of the question. Voltaire kept the libretto and it’s easily available, but Rameau did not keep the score. But he did use parts of the music in other operas.

In 2024 director Claus Gutz and conductor Raphael Pichon decided to adapt the libretto and hunt down Rameau’s music and in the end create a new work, a retelling of the Samson story that finds its roots in the Bible, in Voltaire and Rameau, in today’s world of war and inhumanity. It is a unique take that is difficult to pin down but full of fascination.   

Both Voltaire and Guth-Pichon set Samson in “the present” but Voltaire starts with Bacchus. Hercules. Virtue, the Followers of Virtue and Voluptuousness surrounded by Pleasures and Loves. Guth-Pichon gets rid of all of them. 

Samson, Aix-en-Provence Festival 2024 (c) Ruth Walz

The opera opens in the present with Samson’s mother, a non-singing role played by Andrea Ferreol. She is at Samson’s grave in the ruins of the temple that he brought down in the final outburst of his strength killing a countless number of people. She wants to understand what happened. She will go back in the life of her son to try and understand what has happened.

We learn that she could not bear a child, but she became pregnant and God informed her  that her son will have superhuman power. The Hebrews are the slaves of the Philistines and looking for a liberator. Samson (Jarett Ott) appears wearing white attire and not in the biblical description of covered by the skin of a lion that he killed with his bare hands.

The Philistines wear black, and the Hebrews are in white clothes but there is no pronounced dichotomy between good and evil. In fact, Samson sees the beautiful Timnah (Lea Desandre), a Philistine, falls in love with her and marries her. There is an inexplicable row during the wedding celebration and Samson reacts with horrendous violence. Timnah leaves Samson and his mother is at a loss to understand her son’s behaviour.

These are times of trouble in general and between the Hebrews and the Philistines in particular. We do not know the particulars, but we do see Samson the recluse coming back. The Philistines know his superhuman strength and send the beautiful Delilah (Jacquelyn Stucker) to seduce him and find the source of his power. As the Bible tells us and the whole world knows, Samson betrays his greatest secret and tells Delilah that his strength lies in his long hair. Delilah is paid for her treachery to her lover Judas-like with gold pieces thrown at her. Like Christ’s betrayer, she kills herself.

Samson, Aix-en-Provence Festival 2024 (c) Ruth Walz

Samson is shorn and blinded and kept like a weak slave in the temple of the Philistines. They of course celebrate their great victory, but Samson regains his strength and brings down the temple killing all the Philistine and himself.

We see his mother again on the spot where he is buried under the rubble of the temple, reemerging from the past and trying to understand her son’s behaviour in the past and in his final act.

Much of the singing of Samson falls on American baritone Jarett Ott. He goes through the emotional and vocal demands of the opera with apparent ease. Guth and Pichon do not make it easy to understand the person, despite repeated references to chapter and verse of the Book of Judges of the Old Testament. Ott sings with resonance in an admirable performance. Soprano Jacquelyn Stucker and mezzo soprano Lea Desandre sing gorgeously as the two women that attracted the Hebrew Samson to marry them. Special kudos to the Pygmalion Chorus and Orchestra under the direction of Pichon.

The production required some extraordinary sets, lighting and special effects. The brilliant Guth and Pichon are responsible for the concept of the opera and the attendant musical and dramatic details. Without them nothing would have been possible. Extraordinary light and video effects by Bertrand Couderc, sets by Etienne Pluss, Costumes by Ursula Kudma, sound by Mathis Nitschke, all added to the outstanding production values.

Voltaire and Rameau may be rolling in their graves but also applauding the fertile imaginations and talents of the 21^st century creators of the premiere of their opera.
____________________
Samson by Claus Guth and Raphael Pichon based on the lost opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau and the libretto of Voltaire continues in repertory until July 18 2024 at the Théâtre de l'Archevêché, Aix-en-Provence, France.  http://festival-aix.com/

JAMES KARAS IS THE SENIOR EDITOR, CULTURE OF THE GREEK PRESS