William Christie, Les Arts Florissants, the young singers of Le Jardin de Voix and a trio of excellent dancers provided a stylish opening for Toronto Summer Music with a staged performance of two works by Marc-Antoine Charpentier for a packed Koerner Hall audience.
The first half of the programme was Charpentier’s Les Arts florissants, an extended paean of praise to Louis XIV for temporarily staying his endless series of wars and giving peace a (brief) chance; a sort of 17th-century FIFA Peace Prize if you will. Musically it’s rather predictable; elegant but repetitive and the allegorical libretto is unfortunate. It got a very well conceived and executed performance though. The instrumental playing was stylish and the singing idiomatic with the young cast portraying a range of allegorical figures such as La Paix and La Poésie.
Best though was the movement. Koerner Hall isn’t the easiest place to stage a work but the direction and choreography team of Marie Lambert Le Bihan, Stéphane Facco, Martin Chaix and Eleanor Freeman found lots of inventive ways to bring the piece to life. Dancers Angrea Scarfi, Claire Graham and Tom Godefroid were athletic and skilled in styles that varied from classical ballet to modern dance with no attempt at nods to Baroque style. Equally impressively, the singers joined in the choreography with considerable verve and athleticism. It was really quite dramatic with enough use of stage haze on occasions to obscure the surtitles!
After the interval came the more dramatically substantial La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers. It’s quite a straightforward retelling of the classic story of Eurydice’s death and Orpheus’ mission to rescue her from Hades. though it’s possible that the original ending has been lost as the “second death” of Euridice just doesn’t happen. There was more opportunity for the singers to create relatable characters here and they did. Richard Pittsinger was stylish and touching in the haute-contre role of Orphée and was well matched by Camille Chopin’s sympathetic Euridice. Colombian bass Kevin Arboleda-Oquendo shone as Pluton with a deep and powerful, indeed sepulchral delivery; very regal and quite scary. Set against him, Sarah Fleiss’ sparkling soprano as Proserpine provided the proper balance in the black clad rulers of Hades.
If the movement and dance in this second work was somewhat less flamboyant than in the earlier piece it still served the drama well. Groups of dancers and singers bound with red cords vividly evoked the tormented souls of the afterlife; writhing and twisting and forming strong stage pictures.
So two Charpentier works that are musically quite similar got somewhat contrasting treatments. The first had the more ebullient staging and choreography while the second allowed more space for character development and story telling. ll in all, an auspicious start to the festival.
