2023-07-07 17:34:51
The words of Dmitri Tcherniakov had already put us on the alert. When meeting-debate organized by the Festival d’Aix around the characters in the opera, the director delivered some keys to his vision of So do all. And not once did he refer to the music, or even to the libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, the third one written for Mozart.
Only the plot based on the manipulation of two couples by a third seemed to interest him. For now – why not? – put it in its “sauce”: instead of sentimental young people, naive and easy to fool, blasé fifties, eager to spice up their purring loves with a bit of olé olé experience… Thus, for the director russian scene, lovers of Cosi knowingly swap partners, each openly seducing the other’s fiancée.
From boredom to discomfort
This postulate posed in a show apartment setting as cold as it is impersonal, the action can begin… but it doesn’t really begin. Apart from the perverse posturing of the two chief manipulators, Alfonso and Despina, everything drags on. An apathetic emptiness reinforced by the musical direction of Thomas Hengelbrock, at the head of a narrow and not very virtuoso orchestra, which seems to try various tempos (few nuances on the other hand) without ever finding the right one. And it’s not the last twenty minutes, tipping into the most unpleasant psychotic grotesqueness, that will wake up the whole thing.
As for the singers, what the hell did they do in this mess? Chosen for their mature age with a strange naturalistic concern, they are overwhelmed by the demands of roles that require freshness and endurance. Hence the discomfort of the spectator who wonders about a form, certainly civilized, of humiliation: is it worthy of thus underlining the irreparable outrage of the years?
Everyone tries to save the day in their own way. By wavering like Georg Nigl (Alfonso), who often talks more than he sings with a sneering and horrifying uniformity. Her alter ego, Despina, inspires Nicole Chevalier with a constantly vulgar performance, while the Guglielmo (Russell Braun)-Dorabella (Claudia Mahnke) couple shines with their neutrality. The second is also deprived of its tune in Act II…
Her sister Fiordiligi (Agneta Eichenholz) makes up for her honest but boring singing with a certain allure, except for a few poetic interventions in the ensembles, which unfortunately are often messy. Alone, despite a voice that now betrays him, tenor Rainer Trost’s Ferrando seems to summon Mozart’s memory. If a few rare flashes of emotion pierce this sinister sky, it is only thanks to him.
Cosi writes the memory of Aix
To quickly forget this musical and theatrical shipwreck, visit the exhibition that the Tapestry Museum devotes to Aix productions of Cosisince the founding show in 1948. Even before entering it, The Banquet in the open air is a delightful and relevant introduction.
Executed by the Beauvais factory from a cartoon by Jean-Baptiste Leprince (1734-1781), a pupil of Boucher, the tapestry depicts charming young people, dressed and wearing oriental hairstyles, feasting under canopies. We then remember that the two heroes of Cosi also disguise themselves as “Orientals” to test the loyalty of their fiancées.
heroic times
From costume to decorative element, from photograph to prop to deliciously old-fashioned cardboard, the eleven successive stagings of Mozart’s opera testify to the evolution of tastes and aesthetic canons, while the memorable gallery of singers unfolds. who lit up the evenings at the Archdiocese: Teresa Stich-Randall, Nan Merriman, Léopold Simoneau, Nicolai Gedda, Rolando Panerai, Teresa Berganza, Gabriel Bacquier… Their successors are also honoured, as are the directors who provided the setting for the tenderness and humor, cruelty and melancholy of this long unloved opera.
Here is Jean Mercure in 1977 who, during the opening of the opera, proposed to the women to modify its title: So do all (so do they all) became So do everyone (so they all do). Here is Patrice Chéreau in 2005, questioning with nobility and gravity “unconscious desires” characters “playing dangerous, serious and secret things”.
A clever summary of the plot
The visitor who does not yet know the plot will discover it very cleverly summarized in a few minutes, thanks to a short animated film adopting the codes of the photo novel. The faithful of the festival, he will let himself be overwhelmed by a sweet nostalgia, but also some less radiant memories…
And everyone will marvel at the apt words of the poet and critic Pierre Jean Jouve (1887-1976): « So do all poses, ultimately, the problem of the freedom of art: capable of radiating sadness, of sanctifying doubt, of forgiving error, finally of illustrating all human matter by the spirit to which it bears witness. »
#Festival #dAix #Mozart #blessed #Mozart #cursed..