The spirit of William Christie hung over this Platée from Les Arts Florissants, even if the man himself was forced by recent surgery to watch from a box rather than direct from the stage. Stylish, dramatic, reflective, and immaculately performed, this was a fine performance of an off-putting work.
Les Arts Florissants’ Platée has been on tour for a while now, notably to Vienna (where we reviewed it) and Paris. In Europe, it was performed in an opulent Robert Carsen production that focused on the hypocrisy and innate nastiness of the ways in which society, and especially the fashion industry, conceptualises and promotes “beauty”. The work itself, written for the marriage of the Dauphin to Maria Theresa in 1745, is rather jarring if not taken explicitly as satire. Platée is a marsh-dwelling nymph, who finds herself the object of a godly plot. Junon, Jupiter’s wife, is going through a jealous spell, and so Jupiter, Mercure, Chitéron, and representations of Comedy, Love, and Ridicule (conniving with the wines of Bacchus) all concoct a way to show her the error of her ways. Jupiter descends to earth and plans to marry Platée, who is vain, stupid, and most importantly ugly. Eventually Junon, sent on a wild chase through Athens by Mercure to pique her anger, finds Platée and Jupiter exchanging wedding vows. Seeing Platée’s face, she realises Jupiter must be kidding her, and all is well in the land of the gods. Platée, rightly upset, trudges off, as a crowd heckles with songs of her charms.
There was no Carsen for New York – a "busker's version", Christie said – and barely a smattering of costumes were brought over with the troupe. Platée kept her pink frock, ostentatious jewellery, and beehive hair. The other characters, acting superbly together and with the chorus, were in usual concert dress, albeit with some suggestive suits among the men. Mercure, for instance, is absolutely the organisation man he became here. But the resulting message was a bit confusing.
What we had, on first glance, was a man dressed in drag being hounded for how she looked and hoped, an uncomfortable sight in today’s New York. Stripped of the rest of the production, I was left to wonder whether this was intended as a satire on beliefs about beauty and hierarchy, or a simple (and cruel) presentation of them, or a way to make us feel better about our supposedly progressive contemporary mores. Paul Agnew’s loving conducting tended to suggest that we ought to feel sympathy for the central character, but that was totally undercut by Marcel Beekman’s gurning characterisation of her as Dame Edna Everage without the knowing humour, and his determination to sing in a consciously ugly manner, flat and with horrible pronunciation. Many in the audience found this hilarious. I just felt awkward.