Of all the productions produced by Robert Carsen for the Paris Opera, theAlcina by Haendel, staged in 1999 and revived in 2004, is remembered as a delight. Since the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, where he staged Orlando (1993), then Mixes (1996), that of Glyndebourne with Rinaldo (2011), the Canadian director has established himself as one of the champions of baroque opera. That is to say if his Ariodanteseen during the preview on April 17 and presented at the Palais Garnier from April 20 to May 20, was expected.
No magician, this time, no more than an enchanted island, but love, again and again, within a Scottish court whose symbols Carsen has multiplied. From the traditional dress of the male aristocracy, wearing colored tartan kilts, to the Celtic dance, passing through the decor, everything is impregnated with this grid of squares and lines called the sett. Thus the green room of Ginevra, opulent four-poster bed and ceremonial woodwork, where the beginnings of the drama are immediately tied.
While the daughter of the King of Scotland rejoices in her upcoming union with the feudatory prince, Ariodante, the black Duke of Albany, Polinesso, drunk with power, swears to himself to prevent this marriage. A deceptive scheme is set up with the complicity of the servant Dalinda, who accuses the princess of shamelessness and infidelity, convincing the desperate Ariodante to attempt suicide while the king repudiates his daughter.
Pulled, likeAlcinafrom Ariosto’s chivalric poem Orlando furious, the story will nevertheless end with a happy ending, the punishment or forgiveness of the guilty, and the restoration of betrayed love and flouted honor. Humor and the second degree immediately rub shoulders with the Handelian drama, with its hordes of journalists and paparazzi invading the set from the rural part of the first act. Carsen skillfully superimposes members of the current Windsor dynasty onto the opera’s protagonists, giving the plot a twist. The Crownseries created by Peter Morgan on the life of Elizabeth II.
Drama, humor and second degree
At the end, while the young people will have slipped away in the English fashion with their suitcases after having swapped their court clothes for simple contemporary clothes, the crowned heads will find themselves stored in the museum, and one will easily recognize in the statues of wax in ghillies (soft leather shoes) the effigies of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the future King Charles III and Princes William and Harry, and their wives. Lurcanio, the brother of Ariodante (who looks like William), is an edgy redhead, Ginevra borrowing a beret and hairstyle from Kate Middleton.
You have 61.78% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
