Rameau - Castor et Pollux (1737 version), at the Paris Opera's Palais Garnier

ONP Garnier, Paris, Thursday January 23, 2025

Conductor: Teodor Currentzis. Production: Peter Sellars. Sets: Joelle Aoun. Costumes: Camille Assaf. Lighting: James F. Ingalls. Choreography: Cal Hunt. Video: Alex MacInnis. Télaïre: Jeanine De Bique. Castor: Reinoud Van Mechelen. Pollux: Marc Mauillon. Phébé: Stéphanie d'Oustrac. Mars, Jupiter, un athlète: Nicholas Newton. Minerve, Une Suivante d’Hébé: Claire Antoine. L’Amour, Le Grand-Prêtre, un Athlète: Laurence Kilsby. Vénus, une ombre heureuse: Natalia Smirnova. Utopia Orchestra and Chorus. 

 

Photos: Vincent Pontet/OnP

 

I’m on a sort of Rameau binge at the moment. Since enjoying Les Fêtes d’Hébé just before Christmas, I’ve been reading his biographies, first in French, by Sylvie Bouissou, editor-in-chief of the Rameau Opera Omnia project, which is producing critical editions of all his works in partnership with Bärenreiter, and now in English, by Simon Trowbridge, who, being less of a specialist, focuses slightly more on Rameau’s life than his scores. In both cases, I’ve been listening again, as I read about them, to his ‘operas’ - not a word used often, in France at the time, to describe them. In the spring, I still have Claus Guth and Raphaël Pichon’s ‘re-imagination’ of the lost Samson (a collaboration with Voltaire) to come; and last week, I attended a new production of Castor et Pollux, which preceded Les Fêtes d’Hébé and is thought, like it, to contain some of the music intended for Samson, at the Palais Garnier. As Teodor Currentzis and Peter Sellars are, both of them, idiosyncratic and unpredictable, and as the most recent Sellars production I’d seen, Beatrice di Tenda at the Bastille, was exasperatingly bad, I admit I went along with some trepidation.

In an interview posted on the Paris Opera’s website, Sellars explains why it was so important to him to go back to the original, 1737 edition of Castor et Pollux, with its allegorical prologue. It’s usually posited that the prologue refers to the end of the war of the Polish succession, ratified under the Treaty of Vienna in 1738, though Sylvie Bouissou dismisses the idea. In 1754, Rameau rejigged the work considerably, writing a new act to replace the prologue altogether. By then, if it had indeed referred to the peace, it was no longer topical, and these prologues in general were gradually disappearing from the French stage, partly under the impulse of serial innovator Rameau himself. It’s now the later edition that is more commonly performed.

Though it’s delivered in his usual icky style, as if reading fairy tales to a classroom of toddlers, Sellars offers a sincere, convincing, even moving, overview of the themes the work deals with, and why he finds the prologue so important. In it, Mars has left the world in ruins and the arts in chains. Sellars would prefer, he tells us, to see the arts free and the military establishment in chains. And, at the end, ‘the message, of course,’ (as he sees it) ‘is that we have to stop being different countries, and we have to be the human race, and we have to be one planet. This is the opera of realising we live on one planet.’

A handful of elements combine throughout the relatively simple staging. The curtain is up as the audience trickles in. The wall at the rear is already filled with video - at this point, of graffitied, possibly war-damaged tower blocks at night. Flashes of light may come from passing traffic, neon signs, or explosions. On stage is a shabby flat, without partitions: its rooms are delineated by rectangles of light and shade on the floor. In the middle, there’s a rumpled, red sofa, a tatty armchair and a curiously boxy (see why later) wooden coffee table. On the right, a dining table and chairs, in front of a freestanding kitchen with cabinets, a sink and a fridge; on the left, a worn-out bed in front of a spindly shower with plastic curtains. The shower, in particular, got some people’s goat.

As well as the soloists and chorus, wearing everyday contemporary clothes, Mars in a general’s uniform, Pollux in camouflage fatigues, and Télaïre in austere but elegant black, dancers in streetwear play an important part. Their ballets are of a kind called ‘Flexing’, physically demanding and possibly painful, as it involves elaborate, disjointed-looking contortions of the limbs: not for the squeamish. The chorus are often in the pit, but when on stage make the semaphoric gestures we’re used to from Sellars.

As the action progresses, the videos change, eventually drawing a kind of arc from earth to heaven and back, i.e. from night views of motorways and refineries to the stratosphere, the Earth seen from above, Jupiter, the sun, galaxies, the constellation of Gemini and, as we fete the universe at the opera’s happy end, back to the motorways and refineries. More startlingly, the furniture in the scruffy flat comes to life, as it were. The contorted dancers - gang members, warriors, slaves, monsters or spirits - enter and exit through the fridge, out of the cabinets, under the sink, between the shower curtains. The red sofa turns out to be the mouth of hell, swallowing people up under its cushions or disgorging them in turns. The coffee table doubles as Castor’s coffin.

It is, I think, typical of Sellars, with his indefatigably rose-tinted, ultimately endearing, view of human nature, to have the murderous gang members (or drug dealers or whatever they are) of the prologue all smiles and lovey-dovey at the end. They 'groove' to the long chaconne and cheerfully clink their glasses, as the ‘Fête de l’Univers’ turns into a bring-a-bottle party, with a buffet of pizza, Pringles and popcorn laid out on the dining table. The question is, do we really understand how we got here? Were we under a military dictatorship, now fallen? Is Mars a general or a police chief? Why (in this production) is Castor murdered, apparently at home? Who is Jupiter supposed to represent: Pollux’s dad? How does the mythological story of a descent into hell, out of brotherly love, and that eventual happy end brought about only thanks to Jupiter, fit in with the contemporary production concept? All this remained unclear to me. Perhaps I need to read up more and see it again to begin to understand. In the meantime, I suspect those who’ve said the director relied heavily on the ballets and videos to pad out a hazy, incoherent overall vision may have a point. And - a couple of final remarks - though the young dancers worked hard, over the duration of the work their choreography was repetitive, verging on tedious. They lacked the charismatic enthusiasm of the Compagnie Rualité in Clément Cogitore’s 2019 Les Indes Galantes. And it seems perverse of Sellars’s designer, in a work involving so much dance, to clutter the stage with furniture, forcing dancers and chorus to squeeze in as they could around it.

I’ve never really made my mind up about Teodor Currentzis. With his cult following and vaguely megalomanic public persona, he might be a genius, a charlatan, or something in between. I enjoyed his Sacre du Printemps, but was disconcerted when he cast Simone Kermes as the Countess (as I was when Biondi cast Nadja Michael, too late, as Lady Macbeth). Already, when I first came across him conducting Verdi in 2008 and 2009, I’d written, with regard to his focus on detail in a score: ‘you might say he loved it to death, or at any rate conducted so lovingly that at times he bordered on mannerism.’ That was the case last week. His seeming obsession with lovingly, meticulously shaping every note slowed the evening down, and he took considerable risks, in a 2,000-seat house, with the dynamics. Not only did he constantly hold the orchestra and chorus back, except for occasional outbursts, e.g. of warlike drums or furious storm music; he also opted, frequently, for perilously extreme pianissimi, especially from Jeanine de Bique, and especially in her famous monologue ‘Tristes apprêts, pâles flambeaux.’ As the strings of his new Utopia orchestra lack period-instrument bite (as far as I know, it’s a virtuoso ensemble but not a ‘HIP’ one), their soft, intimate playing lacked the vivid contrasts and colours you expect from Rameau. It verged, over more than three hours, on the soporific.

Admittedly, Jeanine de Bique’s monologue, sung with the slenderest possible thread of a voice and plunging the audience into total silence, came close to the sublime. (Berlioz indeed described it as ‘one of the most sublime conceptions in all dramatic music.’) And at the denouement, the famous ‘Fête de L’univers,’ Currentzis finally took the mutes off and, by giving the Planète’s lively aria (mentioned by Sellars in his interview) to Jeanine Debique, allowed us more easily to appreciate her fascinating, grainy timbre, as well as the striking stage presence, radiating character, that had been obvious all evening.

In the 1737 version, Castor doesn’t get much opportunity to shine, but Reinoud Van Mechelen was at his best: strong, pure and clear. As Pollux, Marc Mauillon, recently such a remarkable Mercure in Les Fêtes d’Hébé, a haute-contre (i.e. high tenor) role composed for Pierre de Jélyotte (or Jéliote), had his baritone hat on. Yes, he sings both. His is a light, crisp baritone, the right weight for Rameau’s divertissements but perhaps short of the noble gravitas needed for tragédie lyrique, and weak at the very bottom.

I first encountered Stéphanie d'Oustrac over 20 years ago, under Christie in Les Paladins at the Châtelet. I’ve never been an absolute fan of hers, finding her at times unsteady in intonation or rhythm or both. Her timbre now verges on plummy, and the descent into chest voice is jarring, but she makes up for all that by throwing herself into the drama with fearless conviction.

The supporting singers were all as good as they ought to be, but I’d like to single out two who, to me, are new names. Young Laurence Kilsby, an English tenor (in every way, I’m tempted to add) was spellbinding from the very first note of his opening monologue as Amour. And as Mars, Jupiter, and (so the notes say) an athlete, bass-baritone Nicholas Newton sang all evening with beguiling warmth, depth and sincerity. The chorus, though held in check by the conductor, was audibly a virtuoso one. I felt a bit sorry for them clambering in and out of the pit, depending on the production’s requirements.

France Musique will broadcast an audio recording of Castor on February 22, at 20.00 Paris time. I’m told, by the most reliable source possible, that a video will also be broadcast, but I haven’t seen when. Either of these will be an interesting chance to delve again into Currentzis’s idiosyncratic reading, while seeing the video may shed more light on Sellars’ intentions and whether or not he realised them in full.

I would, however, like to quote again the wise contributor to a famous opera blog who said ‘The audience knows.’ Whatever press critics have written about this production, often - of the music at least - high praise, it was noticeable that applause at the end of the first part was modest, and that at the end of the work, there were limited cheers - in clear contrast, I might add, with the end of Clément Cogitore’s 2019 Les Indes Galantes, which scored a huge hit with the public but not with the press. Unusually, Currentzis and his orchestra weren’t cheered at all when he returned to the pit for part two. So in all, the reception was polite, not wild. If my own overall impression, in the end, is mixed and muted, perhaps I’m not alone.

 Note: an edited version of this post may be published on Parterre.com.