Rameau's "Zais".

[Bryn]

If and when the Aparté CDs based on this performance do appear, it will be interesting to hear how the start of Act III is dealt with. I guess they will either have done a later retake or use an edit from rehearsals to avoid the applause drowning out the initial harpsichord entry. In the meantime, I am much enjoying the rejoined Acts I and II. Acts III and IV I will lend an ear to again tomorrow.

[MickyD]

It's good to know that the piece will be released on CD - I think it contains some of Rameau's most beguiling music. But as I said before, I do hope the singers are better rehearsed for the CD, one or two sounded very wobbly to me in the broadcast.

[Bryn]

It's good to know that the piece will be released on CD - I think it contains some of Rameau's most beguiling music. But as I said before, I do hope the singers are better rehearsed for the CD, one or two sounded very wobbly to me in the broadcast.

Aha, I see from this (dated last January) that "Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques will record Zaïs on the Aparté label at Versailles, a particularly appropriate venue as Rameau was appointed court composer there in 1745." I presume that recording was in conjunction with the 18th November performance.

[french frank]

No, no. It's not opera I don't think much of, it's 'opera lovers'.

Well! So you aren't actually an opera lover, just an opera listener?

Actually, to get back to your earlier point about it being a 'silly tale', I wonder if there's a general point about stage comedy - that it's very important that the cast take it completely seriously, as if it weren't silly/funny? That's surely most true in opera where 'ridiculous' stories can also be dramatic and tragic. It doesn't stop the audience laughing/weeping where appropriate as they experience it: that's the whole point. But I think probably that pointing up the silly/ridiculous bits as being such is liable to give a distorted impression of the work.

[Bryn]

Well! So you aren't actually an opera lover, just an opera listener?

Actually, to get back to your earlier point about it being a 'silly tale', I wonder if there's a general point about stage comedy - that it's very important that the cast take it completely seriously, as if it weren't silly/funny? That's surely most true in opera where 'ridiculous' stories can also be dramatic and tragic. It doesn't stop the audience laughing/weeping where appropriate as they experience it: that's the whole point. But I think probably that pointing up the silly/ridiculous bits as being such is liable to give a distorted impression of the work.

Horses for courses. In this case I think playing it straight is the better approach, but slapstick has its place, as for instance in something like Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, though slapstick too works best if played fairly straight. That's the performance though. Nothing wrong with a presenter pointing up the comedic aspects of a work. I very much doubt that Brendel, for instance, plays Beethoven for laughs, but that by no means implies he does not see/hear the jokes - far from it, as his "Does classical music have to be entirely serious?" amply demonstrates.

[Flosshilde]

"For people who are only used to soap operas?"

I fear so, FF...and when the announcer said in the synopsis to Act IV "The whole gang have the most marvellous party", I almost turned off.

Sounds mor like Coward - "I've been to a maaaahvellous party"

[MickyD]

Yes indeed...but sadly Ms Derham can't hold a candle to Ms Lillie.

[french frank]

Nothing wrong with a presenter pointing up the comedic aspects of a work.

I'm not at all sure that the details mentioned were intended to be comic, though. The word 'genie' has unfortunate contemporary associations with pantomime/Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp and in that respect is something of a 'false friend'. The Wikipedia article on Zaïs uses the word but links it to the one on 'jinn' which doesn't have the same associations.

Is Zélide's shock on learning that Zaïs is a jinn supposed to be funny, for example? Just listening to the synopsis suggested to me that this was a variant on the familiar folk tale, known over a very wide area - the supernatural being who falls in love with a human and the various obstacles the couple have to overcome, until all ends happily. But the pastorale héroïque was apparently heroic rather than comic. I suspect that if there is any light relief in the work it lies elsewhere than in the trials of the chief characters.

[french frank]

In case anyone is going to listen again to Zaïs, the complete libretto is here.

To dispel any such suggestion, the subject matter isn't some sort of seasonal pantomime ("Zaïs, regardez derrière vous!"). A vague memory is that the Marriage of Figaro was among the first operas dealing with 'real/contemporary people/society' and before that Greek myth, féerie or perhaps tales from Biblical sources were considered the appropriate subject matter.

(The same went for painting: it was with the coming of the realist movement in the 19th c. that Courbet is quoted as saying: Si vous voulez ... des déesses, montrez-moi z'en.)