Hippolyte et Aricie at Glyndebourne

[Nick Armstrong]

The Singing, the Orchestra and Rameau's music were all superb

Agreed, although it's not my favourite Rameau. Nonetheless there is some extraordinary, beautiful, haunting music...

[doversoul1]

I attended on Sunday, and I enjoyed more than I anticipated. When the production was faithful to the music it worked suprisingly well. The fridge was a silly conceit, I could not stand the sausages etc, but at least the dispute between Cupid and Diana was made clear.

But surely the opposite of Cupid’s domain is not that of loveless, lifeless and, ultimately, death which is what this production seems to be insisting. Would Diana have been so revered and worshiped as a Goddess if that had been the case, and why would the young lovers ask her to protect them (unless they were intended upon a suicide pack)?

I agree with aeolium #31

And it seemed all to do with the director's concept of the goddess Diana as a malign inhibiting force compared with the liberating Cupid. The finale was more like a funeral than the happy ending with dea ex machina. But surely that concept was the opposite of what Rameau (or his librettist, following Racine) intended, particularly for an age where unrestrained passion was seen as bringing misfortune and divine retribution - as it did for Phaedra and Theseus.

It seems to me that the director had little confidence in the original work (although I’m not sure what I mean by the original work).

How much does the conductor have a say in an opera production? I wonder what Christie really thinks about these ‘modern interpretation’.

[aeolium]

But surely the opposite of Cupid’s domain is not that of loveless, lifeless and, ultimately, death which is what this production seems to be insisting. Would Diana have been so revered and worshiped as a Goddess if that had been the case, and why would the young lovers ask her to protect them (unless they were intended upon a suicide pack)?

Why indeed, particularly as Diana in Roman mythology (and Artemis in Greek mythology) had been worshipped as a goddess of fertility and childbirth, yet the implication being given by the production that Diana was conferring sterility and death?

I really wish some of these concept productions had to be run through in front of a cricital panel including the music director and some people knowledgeable about the works and their background. Sometimes the concept seems to be based on misunderstanding.

[David-G]

But surely the opposite of Cupid’s domain is not that of loveless, lifeless and, ultimately, death which is what this production seems to be insisting. Would Diana have been so revered and worshiped as a Goddess if that had been the case, and why would the young lovers ask her to protect them (unless they were intended upon a suicide pack)?

Diana sings quite explicitly, in the Prologue: "Love has no place in my domain".

It seems to me that the director had little confidence in the original work (although I’m not sure what I mean by the original work).

I am sure that the director had full confidence in Racine's tragedy which was the foundation of this work. He may have had less "confidence" in the grafting on of Diana and Cupid (that whole aspect was not in the Racine). The allegorical quarrels of deities were a staple of baroque opera, but to my mind sit somewhat uncomfortably with the great tragedy of "Phedre". To me, a conventional "happy ending" would have had the effect of diminishing the tragedy which had been so powerfully realised earlier in the opera. (And of course the Racine had no happy ending - Hippolyte was dead.) I understand your and Aeolium's point of view, though I do not share it. But while this is a most interesting point of discussion, I do not feel it is a sufficiently major point to belittle the whole production. I must add that I found the realisation of the various deities throughout the opera most imaginative and effective.

[doversoul1]

Diana sings quite explicitly, in the Prologue: "Love has no place in my domain".

I am sure that the director had full confidence in Racine's tragedy which was the foundation of this work. He may have had less "confidence" in the grafting on of Diana and Cupid (that whole aspect was not in the Racine). The allegorical quarrels of deities were a staple of baroque opera, but to my mind sit somewhat uncomfortably with the great tragedy of "Phedre". To me, a conventional "happy ending" would have had the effect of diminishing the tragedy which had been so powerfully realised earlier in the opera. (And of course the Racine had no happy ending - Hippolyte was dead.) I understand your and Aeolium's point of view, though I do not share it. But while this is a most interesting point of discussion, I do not feel it is a sufficiently major point to belittle the whole production. I must add that I found the realisation of the various deities throughout the opera most imaginative and effective.

Diana is against L'Amour or Cupid who brings about ‘love’ that is more closely related to an instant desire or lust. Well, that how I understand it. Along with the allegorical quarrels of deities, a powerful woman’s desire for a young man who loves a suitable young woman is also a staple of French Baroque opera. The tragedy is (as I understand it) that all the power and the glory that the older woman, be she a queen or a goddess, offers are rejected by the young man and the consequence the rejection. Whereas in this production, Phaedra is no more than an older woman, who is happen to be his stepmother. It is rather obvious that he rejects her and she has nothing to rage about unless I missed something completely.

The original happy ending may not be a great narrative but the tragedy has been established, as you say. Surely our mind can hold it and see the happy ending accordingly without blindfolded Theseus and bedraggled Phaedra being paraded on the stage?

The fridge idea is certainly smart but I find the realisation all rather tame and a lot of bits didn’t look quite original.

Still, this is entirely my own taste which is basic to say the least, and as such, this thread has been a good opportunity to learn how things look different to others.

[aeolium]

I am sure that the director had full confidence in Racine's tragedy which was the foundation of this work. He may have had less "confidence" in the grafting on of Diana and Cupid (that whole aspect was not in the Racine). The allegorical quarrels of deities were a staple of baroque opera, but to my mind sit somewhat uncomfortably with the great tragedy of "Phedre". To me, a conventional "happy ending" would have had the effect of diminishing the tragedy which had been so powerfully realised earlier in the opera. (And of course the Racine had no happy ending - Hippolyte was dead.)

But the director was not producing Racine's play, he was producing Rameau's opera. The play is fully tragic, the opera isn't, and to that extent conforms to the conventions of baroque opera (and classical opera seria): the guilty, Theseus and Phedre, are punished - as for instance Idomeneo is punished at the end of Mozart's opera - but the hero and heroine end up happily together. And the music in the last act of Hippolyte makes that absolutely clear - that is what is so frustrating, that the visual images are constantly conflicting with the sense of the music. You would have thought that that would have been an obvious first question to the director in any run-through: why are you trying to make a happy (if artificial) ending tragic?

[kuligin]

That must have been liberating, compared with Glyndebourne where the need to wear a DJ in the boiling heat is so constraining...

Sorry... Seriously, was that the Christie-led one in the early 2000s which was on at the Barbican, having transferred from the Châtelet? Lots of video projections of animals and people bouncing around in the clouds against a sky-blue back-drop? I went to that, actually I thought it was rather exhilarating, I seem to remember!

Yes thats the one, I saw it at the Chatelet, lots of video, and male nudes cavorting.

I was not very familiar with the plot and could not follow any of it. It was in effect a rather enteraining back drop which had nothing to do with the Opera that proceeded in effect as a concert performance.

And yes the music of H et A is haunting, I discovered this work from the LP s of Anthony Lewis, Janet Baker and John Shirley Quirk borrowed from the local library, (Tempus Fugit), so it was a delight to see on the stage with this orchestra.

More Rameau please, surely Covent Garden with its own ballet company could bring us Les Indes Galantes

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes thats the one, I saw it at the Chatelet, lots of video, and male nudes cavorting

Isn't it odd, I'd quite forgotten there was nudity in it!


Re the H&A in Sussex, I find insidious, too, the way the surtitles mistranslate the French to fit more closely with the "concept". In the bit where Phèdre and Hippolyte are depicted like characters in a soap opera in a 2-up-2-down, lots of words were omitted (esp the reference to her as a 'queen') because they were inconvenient to the setting.

[jean]

They simply omitted quite a lot of the French text, didn't they?

[Nick Armstrong]

They simply omitted quite a lot of the French text, didn't they?

Convenient and not always faithful paraphrases, might be one way of putting it.