In our glossily perfect, airbrushed world, ugliness appears an almost deliberate failing. Shows like Ugly Betty fetishise it, while films like Nanny McPhee mark moral improvement by the gradual erasure of physical imperfection. The court of France in 1745 was no less exacting or obsessive than a modern-day Vanity Fair editor, and Rameau wrote Platée to celebrate what seemed, on the face of it, to be a doomed marriage: politically expedient, but surely passion free. The groom was the 16-year-old Louis, Dauphin of France (son of Louis XV, father of Louis XVI); the bride was the Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain, 19 years old, red-haired, and by many contemporary accounts, ill favoured. Rameau’s Platée, therefore, seems to be sailing dangerously close to the wind: the tale of an ugly marsh nymph, convinced of her own irresistibility, who believes she has charmed Jupiter himself – until he rejects her to reassure Juno of his (hardly trustworthy) fidelity. It is a story in which ugliness is seen as an arrogant fault, to be punished and finally abandoned by the divinely beautiful, as they soar back to heaven, laughing.
Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that Rameau could have set out simply to insult the new Dauphine in so base a manner. A consciously courtly entertainment, Platée balances on the precarious premise that, if the gods can be allowed to laugh at mortals, so a sense of humour can be a divine attribute, even a royal one. As it saw Rameau soon established as composer of the King’s Chamber Music, the joke cannot have gone down too badly.
Above all, Platée really is funny, and the Early Opera Company milk every gleeful laugh from Rameau in a beautiful evening of music and fun. Turning petulance into an art form, Platée (Thomas Walker) enters clicking her heels, her towering curls and bearded cheeks channelling Conchita Wurst. The only singer in full costume in an otherwise concert performance, Walker employs silent physical comedy throughout the evening, adjusting his décolletage and patting his curls flirtatiously, simpering and hip-wriggling with gusto, keeping the comic energy stoked. Walker’s voice, slightly husky at times, is full of colour and expression. He is not afraid to take risks, also getting comic mileage out of occasionally hamming up his (excellent) French: the effort and commitment of his characterisation produces a memorably funny performance, all the funnier because some audience members seemed rather taken back by a drag queen opera star.
Another wonderfully camp and consummately brilliant performance comes from Mark Milhofer as Thespis and Mercure. Milhofer is fabulous, his Thespis particularly strong, rather like an immortal Noel Coward with an instinct for showmanship, while his Mercure schemes and plots with Jeeves-like effectiveness. Emmanuelle de Negri shines as L’amour, Clarine, and most memorably as La Folie in a dynamic performance, full of obvious enjoyment and always well acted, her entry as La Folie particularly showstopping, with stunning ornamentation and almost jazz-like eroticism in a series of dazzling short arias. Callum Thorpe’s huge voice is perfectly suited to Jupiter and Momus, always taking us aback with the sheer power and richness of his range. His performance was characterised rather than acted, and at times he was more focused on the conductor than on his fellow cast members, but such are the perils of concert performance; Thorpe constantly impressed. Such an exciting young singer.