Pygmalion Redeemed

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion (An acte de ballet)

On Site Opera

June 17, 2014

Madame Tussauds New York

Performers mixed with wax figurines at Madame Tussauds
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

Lei: On Site Opera had several ambitious ideas for its new production of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s acte de ballet Pygmalion, starting with setting it in two very different site-specific locations: the opening gala at Madame Tussauds’ wax museum, and other two performances at a mannequin factory in Chelsea. Pretty clever for an opera about a sculptor who falls in love with his creation, eh? If that was not enticing enough, On Site created a lot of buzz around its partnership with Figaro Systems, a developer of “libretto simultexting technology,” to allow folks with Google Glass to see the supertitles on their devices during the performance. Finally, the June 19 show was also to be streamed live online. While these are excellent things that certainly sex up opera in the 21st century, to me they are all secondary priorities, embellishments that can come only after all operatic basics are covered, that is, solid singing, convincing acting and strong stage direction.

Céphise meets La Statue for the first time.
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov 

Lui: On Site Opera’s take on Pygmalion was certainly unique in terms of their reinterpretation of the core not only of Rameau’s work, but also of the myth itself. Their production opens with an expositional dumbshow, played out during the overture, in which we are introduced to the sculptor Pygmalion, sung by “haute-contre” tenor Marc Molomot, and his flesh and blood human lover, Céphise, sung by soprano Emalie Savoy, whom we saw all dolled up like a blonde bombshell of a diva as Countess Ceprano in a recent Rigoletto at the Met (potentially some real talent here, though unfortunately in both cases she has very few lines of actual singing). While in the Ovidian version of the myth Pygmalion is an independent loner of an artist and an intransigent misogynist, Molomot plays Pygmalion as bumbling and insecure, self-doubting and self-deprecating, in short, a weak-willed modern male. He ends up seeking refuge in the safe haven of his own idealized realm of artistic creation not because he despises women for their unruly imperfections as in the more orthodox version of the myth, but rather because he is too shy to share his work with his human lover.

The artist at work.
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

At one point during their overture pantomime, Céphise redounds on the floor for him so he can sketch her beautiful reclining body. When she reaches out to see how he represented her, he throws a childish fit that comes more from a lack of self-confidence than anything that resembles the active misogyny of Ovid’s Pygmalion. Even William Christie’s recent production with Les Arts Florissants highlights Pygmalion’s polarizing reaction to Céphise and her nagging, which is not the case here. On Site Opera’s Pygmalion is a stereotypically effete modern male who flounders in his relationship due to his lack of agency. He does not have enough backbone to react negatively to the demands that his flesh and blood lover makes of him. On Site Opera modernizes the myth not only by making Céphise’s favorite accessory an enormous Starbucks-style paper coffee cup, but also by metamorphosizing Pygmalion from individualistic heroic sculptor into the apotheosis of the insecure modern male.

The artist's insecurities come to the surface.
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

From there, everything goes according to Amour’s plans. On cue, the statue comes to life. The sculptor falls in love with his creation. The chorus of Graces gives her some lessons in how to move like a human, and a pair of ballet dancers performs a choreography that tells the story of a courtship, a marriage and its consummation of writhing and intertwined bodies. Most of the rest of this production’s decisions faithfully follow the traditional story arc, that is, until they spring a surprise ending on us.

Amour carries our her plans.
Photo credit: Benjamin Norman / The New York Times

In Pygmalion’s big final aria, “L’amour triomphe,” On Site Opera’s take on the story suddenly veers away from any traditional version one might be familiar with, that is, the one where Pygmalion and his statue end up happily ever after, with Céphise disappearing from the picture entirely. Traditionally, this myth’s essence is about the fulfillment of idealized love and the power of art over flesh and blood reality, with the love goddess Aphrodite intervening to make that happen. In this production, Pygmalion sings the first pass of his final aria all the way through and he is still swept away by the emotions of the moment. He expresses his gratitude to Amour for breathing life into the empty object of his idealized creation. Though she does not seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed, he is still jumping for joy over the miracle of the metamorphosis.

Règne, Amour, fais briller tes flammes,

Lance tes traits dans nos âmes.

Sur des coeurs soumis à tes lois

Épuise ton carquois.

Tu nous fais, dieu charmant, le plus heureux destin.

Je tiens de toi l’objet dont mon âme est ravie,

Et cet objet si cher respire, tient la vie

Des feux de ton flambeau divin.

Temporary fetishistic bliss.
Photo credit: Benjamin Norman / The New York Times

Then when it comes time for the second pass, to repeat the aria da capo, which by the way only includes the first few lines and thus skips the whole bit about loving an object in the last lines of the text that are only pronounced the first time through, he suddenly has a change of heart.

Règne, Amour, fais briller tes flammes,

Lance tes traits dans nos âmes.

Sur des coeurs soumis à tes lois

Épuise ton carquois.

Tu nous fais, dieu charmant, le plus heureux destin.

Lover is reunited with his beloved.
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

In a moment of introspection (remember he is a softie), Pygmalion comes to realize at the last minute that Céphise is his one true love and that, much to Amour’s chagrin, he is not interested in loving his work of idealized art, but wants love in the flesh with a real human girl (Starbucks in tow) despite all the hardships and difficulties, imperfections and disappointments that might entail for the slightly insecure and thoroughly sensitive modern male. And so, the credits roll on a happy ending unlike any you’ve ever seen in the context of the myth. Pygmalion is redeemed and Amour turns out not to be as powerful a god as s/he is supposed to be.

Lei: All this is certainly an intriguing and original concept, however the final product did not come out as polished as it should have. There were some very unfortunate and distracting background noise episodes: the roar of the air conditioning (though the director Eric Einhorn tried to charmingly convince the public to think about it as “rain falling on a Venetian palace”), the clunky ice cream machine at the snack bar, and, worse of all, the chit chat of the elevator operators and their walkie talkies by the entrance that persisted through a good part of the show. Not to mention the thump of a poor patron falling on the floor when his chair collapsed underneath him during the performance. Some of these issues could and should have been controlled and avoided; others were just bad luck.

The New Vintage Baroque ensemble sounded nice under the guide of the always excellent conductor Jennifer Peterson, whom we had the pleasure of seeing in a couple of Operamission productions over the last year (Rodrigo and Agrippina). However, it’s hard to say for sure because the air conditioning was just too loud. I would have been perfectly happy to pay the price of sweating in the NYC June heat to hear undisturbed baroque music, especially for an opera as short as Pygmalion.

The sculptor and his sculpture.
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

As for the singing, I must confess that this was my first time hearing a “haute-contre” tenor and my ear was probably not ready for it. I have always been oddly fascinated by high operatic male voices, particularly by the castrati operatic rock-star phenomenon. Not because I particularly enjoy the sound, but rather out of a desire to understand the evolution in what’s considered “hot male singing” through centuries (particularly because I have very clear ideas on which male voices make me swoon). So, when I heard Marc Molomot I was a bit taken aback as he did not sound like anything I’ve heard before. His voice went pretty high but somehow felt restrained, almost as if it were trapped in his throat. I tried to better understand the mysteries of the different categories of high male voices and found this helpful article that sums up the subject as follows:

Countertenor: Guys singing alto (“against and above the tenor”). The three possible types are:

(1) Falsettist: Guys singing alto in falsetto (head voice);

(2) Tenor altino or haute-contre: Guys singing alto in chest voice and only using falsetto in their extreme upper end;

(3) Castrato: Guys singing alto (or even soprano) in chest voice because they have no testosterone and sometimes no balls.

All very fascinating, but I don’t think I am ready to appreciate haute-contre tenor roles just yet, no matter where and how they are performed. This may have something to do with my Italian operatic preferences, the haute-contre being a baroque French phenomenon historically loathed by Italians, who favored castrati instead.

Eloise DeLuca and Jordan Isadore tell a story without words.
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

The sopranos, Camille Zamora (La Statue), Emalie Savoy (Céphise ) and Justine Aronson (L’Amour) did a fine job singing-wise, but their acting came off as generally forced and not very convincing. The dancing number performed by Eloise DeLuca and Jordan Isadore was creative in mixing different dance styles to baroque music, but the dancers just did not have enough room to perform, at least in the Madame Tussauds space.

Lui: On the whole, I concur with the excessive attention to secondary fancy touches to the detriment of fully covering the basics of a solid opera performance, though I commend On Site Opera for their intentions. Such a radical re-reading of the myth provided some lively food for thought. I look forward to following this young company as they continue to lay the foundations for their future.

– Lui & Lei

Amour presides over the scene in vain.
Photo credit: Benjamin Norman / The New York Times

Dream a Little Debussy Dream

Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande

Against the Grain Theatre, Toronto, Canada

June 25, 2014

Water and loss are the themes of the night.
Image Credit: Against the Grain Theatre 

Lui: It was a cool and rainy early summer night in Toronto. Against the Grain Theatre was to stage a plein air production of Claude Debussy’s impressionistic symbolist opera Pelléas et Mélisande in the courtyard garden of their home base near the Distillery District. But due to a torrential downpour, they moved us inside to a space that was potentially even more dramatic: a vast refurbished old brick warehouse that loomed over the singers and the intimate audience. They were obviously ready for this eventuality as the stage was set up in a large square in the center of the space down toward one end. The audience was configured in three long rows along two sides of the square and the piano accompaniment down off one corner. The supertitles were projected onto one of the walls. On the floor were the minimalist intimations of a sort of garden/spring scene with large flat stones creating a series of paths that zigzagged across the stage. 

Dream a little Debussy dream.
Photo credit: Darryl Block

The whole thing was very low lit so that the characters when they finally appeared seemed to emerge from the darkness like oneiric phantasms, in much the same way that the composer treats all of the action in his score. This is one of the things that is striking about the opera. It is truly a story told through music. Debussy forgoes much of the traditional operatic fare like arias and duets. The whole three-hour feast of musical impressionism plays like a piece of theatrical drama set to music, which is largely what it is. Debussy adapts to remarkable effects the French symbolist play, Pelléas et Mélisande, by Maurice Maeterlinck, who also wrote the incredibly poetic libretto. The music is breathtakingly beautiful. High romantic style, yet modernist with Debussy’s signature flights of impressionistic fancy. Stylistically, the closest thing to it that I have experienced is Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, though Debussy achieves greater subtlety in his score, deeper dreaminess.

Lei: Against the Grain’s production featured a stripped down piano accompaniment rather than Debussy’s sweep-me-away-with-the-wind full orchestral orchestration. The orchestra, however, was not missed as this configuration worked wonders in the intimacy of this setting. Music director and pianist Julien LeBlanc was outstanding and utterly impressive for bearing alone the task of keeping the Debussy flow effortlessly through the three hour-long show, and very beautifully so. The singing melded seamlessly with the piano and really came to the fore, and thank goodness because all singers were truly exceptional. There wasn’t a weak link in the cast. Even all of the secondary roles were sung with grace, poise and force.

Prince Golaud dares to love out of his league.
Photo credit: Darryl Block

Lui: Baritone Gregory Dahl, singing the role of the poor spurned lover Prince Golaud, was consistently phenomemal throughout the opera. His voice and stage presence exuded pure masculine energy from the moment he wandered onto the stage in the opening scene. As the opera begins we are introduced to Golaud who has strayed off the path at the mid-point of his life. He has just lost the trace of the boar he is hunting. He’s still trying to get his bearings when he stumbles upon the dark beauty of the mysterious Mélisande, who has a knack for dropping objects of great importance into the water where they end up for one reason or another irretrievable and put her in trouble. First is a mysterious crown some other man gave her, then the ring from her wedding to Golaud (causing him to throw his first jealous fit). 

The enigmatic Mélisande, a lost soul.
Photo credit: Darryl Block

She too is a lost and seemingly broken soul. We never get much in the way of any kind of deep psychologizing insight into what really makes this character tick. Perhaps this is because Mélisande may not even be human, but rather a fairy, siren-like creature, with supernaturally long hair that has a life of its own. Her locks play several key plot points: they make Pelléas fall in love with Mélisande in a creepy-feticistic way, Golaud grabs Mélisande by them when he brutalizes her, and they have a general tendency of falling from towers, onto trees and of course into the water. Mélisande is largely placed on a pedestal by the men who make what they want of her. Soprano Miriam Khalil played her beautifully with a wistful gaze that was always distant and almost statuesque, which completely suited the music and made the whole thing seem even dreamier. Khalil’s voice has a piercing yet sweet lyricism that rendered Mélisande the frail and tragic focal point of the opera, as it intertwined with the rest of the male voices surrounding her.

The forbidden courtship begins.
Photo credit: Darryl Block

Lei: Baritone Etienne Dupuis’ Pelléas displayed solid singing and acting throughout, with some moments of extraordinary ardent passion in his outbursts of love for Mélisande and his confrontations with Golaud. Dupuis’ articulation was always clear and his sound expressive.  Bass Alain Coulombe as the old king Arkel had a commanding and almost haunting vocal presence notwithstanding his slim frame, his instrument filled the space thunderously while he slowly paced around the stage with his cane. Arkel emerges as a wise survivor of the tragedy that dooms the younger characters, holding Mélisande’s daughter in the final scene as a promise for a better future. Mezzo Andrea Núñez played Yniold, Golaud’s son from a previous marriage with convincing child-like freshness. Her duet with Gregory Dahl was to me one of the most tragically powerful moments of the opera, when Golaud receives what he subjectively perceives to be a confirmation of his wife’s affair with Pelléas from his child who peeks through a window. While the role of Geneviève (the mother of the rival brothers) is a minor one, mezzo Megan Latham portrayed her with solemn grace, particularly in her reading of the key letter from Golaud to Pelléas in the second scene of Act One. Last but not least, four-month old Salim Ivany (the son of director Joel Ivany and soprano Miriam Khalil), was impressive as Mélisande’s daughter. It was amazing to see this baby remain perfectly and blissfully peaceful while being carried around the stage by the singers in full cry in the final scene, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Truly a natural on the stage!

Yniold tells all.
Photo credit: Darryl Block

Lui: Young woman meets and marries middle-aged man, young woman subsequently falls in love with another man, young woman dies. It’s a classic love triangle. Though the story is really not nearly as straightforward as it is commonly thought. And that is exactly what I want to take a closer look at: the mysteries of this extremely rich symbolist text. For example, Mélisande has a special relationship to the water and woodland springs. Is she a woman? Or is she some kind of water nymph, like the fey Melusine, whom some claim inspired the source character in the 1883 play of the same name? Her otherworldliness, at least in this production, would certainly suggest the latter. In any case, she is a strange bird. So much so that I wasn’t sure what to make of the whole story. When in that opening scene she first meets her future husband and tells him that he’s a bit old for her taste but goes along with his advances anyway, a series of red flags went up for me. She has escaped the last man she was with, the one who gave her the crown.

Fatal love takes its toll.
Photo credit: Darryl Block

When we first meet her she seems like a victim of domestic abuse of one kind or another. I wasn’t sure if we were dealing with a proto-feminist story in which the tragic plight a woman living in a man’s world was meant to push us to sympathy over the fate of such a helpless creature, or if all this slightly offensive chauvinistic effrontery that she is forced to endure from all sides – whether from her husband, her father-in-law or her brother-in-law – was just supposed to be taken for granted as the mere texture of the world in which the story unfolds. Even the romance with Pelléas, her purported lover, is only ever convincing at the last moment in their relationship, after he has forced himself on her like all the other men she encounters. In this production, Mélisande was played with such detachment throughout even the kindling of romance with Pelléas that a reading that highlights her victimhood in this male dominated world seems to come to the fore. I tend to think that this is all key thematic material that is central to our understanding of the story. After all, from the very first moment we encounter her, right up the end, when she is laid out on her deathbed, she only ever adorns the pose of the victim, a victim of the world and the men in it.

Prince Golaud and his rival and brother, Pelléas, duke it out.
Photo credit: Darryl Block

Lei: I didn’t get that much of a proto-feminist vibe, though that can be a possible read, particularly with the rendering of this production and Khalil’s detached acting. To me the opera came off more as a timeless tragedy, where the mysterious plot points contributed to its charm of a dream-like impressionistic tale. There is something to the cathartic release of Golaud’s character at the end, with his need to accept the fact that his fatal flaw was desiring a woman who was too young for him. Marrying for love was not the fate that awaited him and everybody pays the consequences. Most of all, I was extremely impressed by the quality of this three year old opera company’s efforts. Against the Grain is a model indie enterprise, and with this production it showed how great operatic experiences can effectively be delivered in unconventional spaces – they did not over-think it and kept the basics strong. At the end all you need are amazing singers, a piano and a vision. We only experienced Against the Grain's contingency plan and loved every minute of it, but I can only imagine what it would have been like to catch this production in the courtyard where it was originally conceived (with the grass and climbing ivy representing water, the production notes tell us). Definitely worth the trip to Toronto, even under the pouring rain.  

– Lui & Lei

The courtyard garden setting we missed out on.
Photo credit: Against the Grain Theatre