You don’t run in to semi-opera often now, even as an antiquarian concern. Because the musical & theatrical components each offer a full evening’s worth of material, by today’s standards, they run long. That, along with the expansive casting requirements, makes it pricey to produce.
The English were wary of the Continental taste for opera in the 17th century, but they liked the idea of adorning plays with music. What composers & theater producers came up with is a curious compromise that Roger North, a writer at the time, called “semi-opera.” In this hybrid form, a play is presented straightforwardly, as spoken text, with masques — parades of songs, choruses & dance — interspersed within each act. The masques are an alternative universe: often, the play unfolds in the real world & the masques in the realm of the supernatural. & though the play’s actors might remain as observers, they cede the stage to the singers & dancers & never interact with them.
“The Fairy Queen” is a 1692 adaptation, by an unknown librettist, of Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a work well suited to the semi-opera form given the distinction between the mundane (the world of the young lovers, Hermia & Lysander, Demetrius & Helena, to say nothing of Bottom & the other play-staging artisans) & the magical (the fairy land ruled by Oberon & Titania).
But the staging of Purcell’s “Fairy Queen” that opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Tuesday evening makes a powerful argument for the form. Directed by Jonathan Kent, with William Christie conducting his superb ensemble, Les Arts Florissants, the production is the centerpiece of the new BAM Opera Festival that Mr. Christie is overseeing. & it is getting around: a collaboration of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Opéra Comique in Paris & the Théâtre de Caen in Normandy, it had its premiere at Glyndebourne last summer & was heard at the one French houses this year.
The masques, though broadly related to the action they interrupt, are freewheeling & vaudevillian in spirit, with airs that tell stories unrelated to the larger work or present allegorical evocations of the seasons, & mini-dramas about the joys & perils of ma
rriage. (Or, in the Masque of Seduction, sex — presented at two point by an army of choristers in bunny costumes, offering what appeared to be a fast tour of the Kama Sutra.)
Mr. Kent & his set & costume designer, Paul Brown, add period — Baroque versus modern — to the list of shifting realities. When the curtain rises on the first act, they find Theseus mediating a relatives dispute between Egeus & his daughter, Hermia, over his choice of a husband for her. Both the elegantly appointed drawing room & the characters’ dress evoke Purcell’s time. But at the scene alter, when the artisans arrive — ostensibly to tidy the duke’s room, but mainly to rehearse “Pyramus & Thisbe,” their play-within-the-play — they wear modern dress. The fairies are somewhere in between: but for their huge, black wings, their dress is modern & trendy, except for Puck, who is not very clothed at all.
Among the singers, the standouts were Emmanuelle de Negri, who gave a magnificently dark-hued, ardent account of the plaint, “O Let Me Cry,” & Lucy Crowe, who gave a shapely performance of Juno’s “Thrice Happy Lovers” while suspended in midair. Ed Lyon & Helen Jane Howells sang appealingly in a comic piece about Adam & Eve, & Andrew Foster-Williams used his rich bass to enliven several character pieces.
Purcell’s full range of secular styles is here, from brass & percussion fanfares to the gentlest arias & duets. Mr. Christie, taking brisk tempos (that, nevertheless, reduced the work’s four-hour walking time), drew magnificent performances from his ensemble’s brass, woodwind & string players, as well as from a huge cast of singers whose devotion to the niceties of Baroque style did not preclude them from using vibrato expressively or shaping their lines with either suppleness or rustic brashness, as the aria demanded.
When Mr. Christie first turned up at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in 1989, it was with a production of Lully’s “Atys” that quickly created a passion in New York for lavishly staged French Baroque opera. Perhaps this “Fairy Queen” will do the same for this entertainingly quirky English style.
The theatrical & dance components of the production are beyond my purview, but the portrayals of Oberon (Finbar Lynch), Titania (Amanda Harris), Lysander (Nicholas Shaw), Helena (Joanna Herbert) & Bottom (Desmond Barrit) contributed importantly to the liveliness of the production, as did Kim Brandstrup’s imaginative, liquid choreography.
The English were wary of the Continental taste for opera in the 17th century, but they liked the idea of adorning plays with music. What composers & theater producers came up with is a curious compromise that Roger North, a writer at the time, called “semi-opera.” In this hybrid form, a play is presented straightforwardly, as spoken text, with masques — parades of songs, choruses & dance — interspersed within each act. The masques are an alternative universe: often, the play unfolds in the real world & the masques in the realm of the supernatural. & though the play’s actors might remain as observers, they cede the stage to the singers & dancers & never interact with them.
“The Fairy Queen” is a 1692 adaptation, by an unknown librettist, of Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a work well suited to the semi-opera form given the distinction between the mundane (the world of the young lovers, Hermia & Lysander, Demetrius & Helena, to say nothing of Bottom & the other play-staging artisans) & the magical (the fairy land ruled by Oberon & Titania).
But the staging of Purcell’s “Fairy Queen” that opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Tuesday evening makes a powerful argument for the form. Directed by Jonathan Kent, with William Christie conducting his superb ensemble, Les Arts Florissants, the production is the centerpiece of the new BAM Opera Festival that Mr. Christie is overseeing. & it is getting around: a collaboration of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Opéra Comique in Paris & the Théâtre de Caen in Normandy, it had its premiere at Glyndebourne last summer & was heard at the one French houses this year.
The masques, though broadly related to the action they interrupt, are freewheeling & vaudevillian in spirit, with airs that tell stories unrelated to the larger work or present allegorical evocations of the seasons, & mini-dramas about the joys & perils of ma
rriage. (Or, in the Masque of Seduction, sex — presented at two point by an army of choristers in bunny costumes, offering what appeared to be a fast tour of the Kama Sutra.)Mr. Kent & his set & costume designer, Paul Brown, add period — Baroque versus modern — to the list of shifting realities. When the curtain rises on the first act, they find Theseus mediating a relatives dispute between Egeus & his daughter, Hermia, over his choice of a husband for her. Both the elegantly appointed drawing room & the characters’ dress evoke Purcell’s time. But at the scene alter, when the artisans arrive — ostensibly to tidy the duke’s room, but mainly to rehearse “Pyramus & Thisbe,” their play-within-the-play — they wear modern dress. The fairies are somewhere in between: but for their huge, black wings, their dress is modern & trendy, except for Puck, who is not very clothed at all.
Among the singers, the standouts were Emmanuelle de Negri, who gave a magnificently dark-hued, ardent account of the plaint, “O Let Me Cry,” & Lucy Crowe, who gave a shapely performance of Juno’s “Thrice Happy Lovers” while suspended in midair. Ed Lyon & Helen Jane Howells sang appealingly in a comic piece about Adam & Eve, & Andrew Foster-Williams used his rich bass to enliven several character pieces.
Purcell’s full range of secular styles is here, from brass & percussion fanfares to the gentlest arias & duets. Mr. Christie, taking brisk tempos (that, nevertheless, reduced the work’s four-hour walking time), drew magnificent performances from his ensemble’s brass, woodwind & string players, as well as from a huge cast of singers whose devotion to the niceties of Baroque style did not preclude them from using vibrato expressively or shaping their lines with either suppleness or rustic brashness, as the aria demanded.
When Mr. Christie first turned up at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in 1989, it was with a production of Lully’s “Atys” that quickly created a passion in New York for lavishly staged French Baroque opera. Perhaps this “Fairy Queen” will do the same for this entertainingly quirky English style.
The theatrical & dance components of the production are beyond my purview, but the portrayals of Oberon (Finbar Lynch), Titania (Amanda Harris), Lysander (Nicholas Shaw), Helena (Joanna Herbert) & Bottom (Desmond Barrit) contributed importantly to the liveliness of the production, as did Kim Brandstrup’s imaginative, liquid choreography.
