With a flourish of French Baroque finesse, Les Arts Florissants under the direction of William Christie brought two short chamber operas by Marc-Antoine Charpentier to life Wednesday night in Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall. In a double feature with semi-staging, the French Baroque specialists reached back to the core of their repertoire to produce Charpentier’s Les Arts florissants, the group’s namesake, paired with La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers. The former is an allegorical tale celebrating Louis XIV as a protector of the realm and patron of the arts, while the latter tells the perennial opera story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Arts Flo, as they sometimes style themselves, were joined by vocal ensemble Le Jardin des Voix, an offshoot program of the ensemble supporting emerging young professional singers. Finally, a small troupe of four dancers rounded out the cast.
The semi-staging by Marie Lambert-Le Bihan and Stéphane Facco demonstrated striking creative choices from the start. The first work, Les Arts florissants, began with a singer (Olivier Bergeron) and a dancer (Andrea Scarfi) entering the empty stage. Bergeron walked around slowly while Scarfi danced casually wearing over ear headphones as if listening privately to his own music. Most of the audience had no idea the performance had already begun and continued to chat quietly until the pre-show announcement finally indicated things were starting. The rest of the cast and musicians soon entered the stage, acting like a wedding party in which the allegorical character La Musique (Camille Chopin) was the bride, and Christie as the father of bride giving her away. These choices made clear an intention to draw us into the story by pairing a more modern approach to dramaturgy and dance with HIP in the music. The choreography by Martin Chaix, assisted by Eleanor Freeman, similarly blended fluid modern dance with allusions to conventional Baroque gestures.
In fact, one of the most remarkable aspects of the staging was the mingling of the dancers and singers throughout both operas. The singers often danced and the dancers seemed to mime singing occasionally. It gave a sense of cohesiveness in the small ensemble, where each had to inhabit multiple roles. Frequently, the vocalists changed timbre like a costume for the voice. When portraying the allegorical characters of the Arts they sang with more traditionally round but sparkling tones; yet, when La Discorde (Bergeron) disrupted the proceedings and brought the arts under his sway, the ensemble took on a more strident, nasal, even harsh timbre to show the chaotic effects of Discord. While these choices are not historically accurate, they do effectively convey the drama of the opera in a way that might appeal to a modern audience. Yet, the choral sections blended beautifully, as the soloists did double duty—a nod to the original performance situation of the piece as a chamber work in an aristocratic home.
The instrumentalists played from the stage behind the action; consequently, they were difficult to see and at times to hear when the singers’ voices swelled in a crescendo. Yet, they played throughout with impressive ease, navigating a style of music which is quite intricate in its ornamentation and yet delicate in sound. I was particularly impressed by Christie’s direction from the harpsichord; he gestured sparingly but quite pointedly. His economy of gesture demonstrated not only trust in his musicians but also a notable clarity of nonverbal communication.
Following intermission, Arts Flo turned from allegory to myth with Orphée featuring tenor Richard Pittsinger in the title role. No stranger to Baroque opera (see my review of his performance in Handel’s Ariodante with Boston Baroque HERE), Pittsinger excelled as the mythical patron saint of musicians. He navigated the challenging haute contre role with grace and delicacy balanced with emotional sincerity that earned him a well-deserved ovation. The haute contre is unique to the French Baroque as a tenor that requires strength in an extremely high register without an overwhelming sound. Few modern tenors can truly embody this otherwise extinct voice type—one that Charpentier himself sang. On top of that, midway through the opera, Pittsinger donned a brown leather bomber jacket and leapt acrobatically over moving ropes representing the obstacles of the underworld, as Orpheus descended. In doing so, he appeared as an Indiana Jones type navigating traps and pitfalls to reach his goal.
Among the soloists, Bergeron also deserves mention for the wildest swings in vocal technique to portray vastly different characters, three in total. In Les Arts, he portrayed the villain La Discorde with a sinister swagger and a lighter baritone. In Orphée, he tackled a bass role as the regal god Apollo and then also Titye, one of the tortured denizens of the underworld. In each character, he transformed his voice and showed an impressive flexibility of timbre and expression. Camille Chopin also excelled in leading roles of both operas—La Musique and Eurydice. Her death scene as Eurydice captivated us while avoiding the typical melodrama of opera characters singing through their death.
Ozawa Hall proved a surprisingly effective venue for this production. Given that it is not a space intended for dramatic stagings, at times the acoustic was a bit too resonant for such a small, intimate performance. However, the staging and especially the lighting choices more than made up for this. Lacking entirely any sets and having minimal costumes and props made the lighting nearly the only thing to set the scene and the mood. From the stark white of Eurydice’s death and Orpheus’s lament to the fiery red of the underworld, Marie Lambert-Le Bihan’s lighting design immersed us in the story. And we loved the overall 18th-century effect of the footlights.
As soon as the final chorus of Orphée faded into silence, the audience quickly telegraphed its enthusiasm. In fact, the ovation went on for so long through multiple ensemble bows that eventually Christie simply tapped his watch as if to say, “It’s late, let’s go home!” Despite the lateness of the hour, it seemed the appreciative audience wanted even more.