This is the spectacle of the Lille Opera not to be missed. First because A Midsummer Night’s dream is a masterpiece of Shakespeare. Then because the music of a very inspired Benjamin Britten is wonderful. Finally because Laurent Pelly’s staging, served by a large cast of excellent singers (little known) is of a very pleasing intelligence and poetry. Let’s add the very fine work of conductor Guillaume Tourniaire and Lil’s orchestra; and here is why on the evening of the premiere the troupe was applauded for such long minutes…
The revenge of Laurent Pelly
It’s strange how, from the first minutes of a show, we know – we guess, we can be wrong, but by little! – if it will be successful or less – sometimes missed. More than intuitions, it is also simply due to what we hope for from a work. Because we have, in front of the title, the composer, the director, already dreamed of something and then the surprise, or the non-surprise, arrives when the curtain rises, which reinforces our expectation of the sequel or disappoints it.
Puck at work (Charlotte Dumartheray) C) Simon Gosselin
We felt that at the last opera staged by Laurent Pelly, this Cosi fan tutte of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (chronicle of March 11, 2022) where the overwhelming Berlin studio seemed to immediately constrain Mozart’s grace and lightness and the rest of the work, alas! didn’t fool us. We ended our analysis with this sentence: Laurent Pelly owes us a rematch. We didn’t think it would happen so quickly and we’re delighted – even if that’s not the only reason we made the trip to Lille.
A night full of moons and lights
We are in the dark. And already Pelly takes literally the term “night” in the title. But it’s a summer night, which is supposed to shine with lights and stars. And, precisely, there are garlands of golden, silver, pink lights that descend from the hangers in a poetic and dense net. A summer night all the brighter as it happens near Athens – we know that one of the greatest pleasures of lovers of Shakespeare is this fanciful geography which distributes the heroes of these light plays in improbable places -here the characters of lovers have Greek and Roman names under the authority of Theseus and Hippolyte, his fiancée, queen of the Amazons…
Majestic Oberon (Nils Wanderer) C) Simon Gosselin
Under the lights then appear very small heads framed by three candle lights: at first we believe in Boltanski-style illuminated photos but they are very much alive faces, those of the elves who sing one of those beautiful children’s choirs typical of English choirs – and already the elegance, the inspiration of Britten’s music delight our ears. As happy Britons, Britten and his companion Peter Pears (who will reserve the partly transvestite role of the shy Flute) decided to tackle Shakespeare’s play, one of the master’s most marvelous, all veins combined, in its dimension of enchantment. and burlesque, tenderness and humor; and they did it with great intelligence, re-cutting, splicing, but respecting the characters who all have moments to defend, both vocally and theatrically, so close are each in the opera to what they are in the room.
The group of “artisans”: 2nd from the left Gwilym Bowen (Flute), on the right Dominic Barbieri (Bottom) C) Simon Gosselin
Three intersecting worlds
We will recall, of this piece, the complexity; and the virtuosity with which Shakespeare (then Britten and Pears) treated it: three very different worlds intersect. That of the nobles of Athens around the love misunderstanding of two couples: Lysander and Hermia who love each other while Hermia is promised to Demetrius. Demetrius who loves Hermia but is pursued by Helena’s attendances. Then that of artisans, the rustic, as much to say the hicks: under the authority of Bottom (which we translated as Bobine and not Derrière) line up Coin (Quince), Etriqué (Snug), Groin (Snout), Famélique (Starveling) and Flûte (Flute ), slender character who will play the Thisbe of Pyramus-Bottom -mythological legend who is a kind of “Romeo and Juliet”.
A spell in the shape of a donkey
The third couple comes from the world of the night, the king of the Elves, Oberon, the queen of the Fairies, Tytania (those ones, by the way, are obviously nothing Athenian, they would be rather Germanic!), husband and wife , fighting over a young boy (!) whom we will never see. We think of the Queen of the Night and Sarastro. Oberon is going to cast a spell on sleeping Tytania who will fall in love with the first living one she will see when she wakes up – and it will be Bottom, but transformed into a donkey by the elf Puck, Oberon’s trustee, which will in no way prevent Tytania from finding him superb and to his liking. A Puck who multiplies the blunders since he will make the wrong ointment on the eyes of the lovers, Lysander and Demetrius, so that the latter, abandoning Hermia, will pursue with their assiduity a Helena surprised and angry at these feelings too sudden to be , she thinks, sincere…
Marie-Eve Munger (Tytania) lunar… C) Simon Gosselin
Britten’s Wonderful Inspiration
Britten’s music (one sometimes wonders if people have ears) surprised and disconcerted in 1960 because it mixed genres. But she mixed them as Shakespeare mixed styles: with a subtlety, a richness of inspiration, a sense of unstoppable sequences, by summoning the most varied influences while making Britten. Thus the wonderful idea of entrusting the role of Oberon to a countertenor (which reinforces the strangeness of his character from dreams) – and the creator, Alfred Deller, was, moreover, the only countertenor in this time. The joyful and amorous Tytania is in the vocalizations, there are baroque influences from the great Englishmen, Handel and Purcell, combinations of timbres reinforced by unusual and above all unusually united instruments (so many little miracles of musical friction):; harp, glockenspiel, celesta, snare drum, harpsichord.
Or, on the contrary, in the theatrical parody, great lyrical effects on the strings, as in romantic operas. As for the delicious scene of the misunderstanding of the lovers – marvelously orchestrated by… Laurent Pelly – there are, in the dynamism of the exchanges and the superposition of voices, tints of musical comedy à la Stephen Sondheim, unless Sondheim be inspired sooner by that Britten.
Lovers argue: from g. to d. Antoinette Dennefeld (Hermia), David Portillo (Lysander), Charles Rice (Demetrius), Louise Kemény (Helena) C) Simon Gosselin
A “vampire” Oberon stroking a breast
Pelly, for three hours, with almost nothing, lights, two beds (those of the lovers which will also be used in Tytania and Bottom) and mirrors, pulls off a marvel of magic stuffed with poetic ideas, starting with an enormous moon which tint of silver, gold, blue, green, pink or orange, sometimes joined by other small moons. These lights of the elves, marvelous of strangeness and mystery, also when they enter on twinkling bicycles; the character of Oberon, with the face of a white clown, reinforcing his vampiric side, which he may be, as indicated by a sentence of Puck on the dangerous return of the day. And the elegance with which, thinking of the generous forms of Tytania, he leans his hand on the breast of a caryatid from the theater, as if by mistake, is a pretty find.
Hippolyte (Clare Presland) in the middle of the lights C) Simon Gosselin
A staging full of ideas
There are others. Bottom’s “true” donkey-head (with an accompaniment of “crazed” instruments) and the sensuality of Bottom and Tytania asleep under Oberon’s gaze, reminiscent of those Italian Renaissance paintings of Venus and Mars taken with the fillets of Hephaïstos -Tytania, great cleavage of a Marie-Eve Munger with delightful vocals, huddled against the magnificent baritone Dominic Barbieri (deep and sonorous voice), in underpants, muscular body under her quadruped face. And the delicious scene of the representation of the craftsmen, where the laughter fuses (while the intrigue is buckled), there too, it is of a perfect installation and a rhythm. Also, or finally (we can’t reveal everything), long after the entry of Tytania and Oberon suspended in the air, almost in teleportation even above the orchestra pit, this dancing exit, when the two are reconciled, with accents of a shady 1920s Berlin cabaret. Under the shadow of Puck, a speaking role, played by an astonishing actress with a pixie physique, Charlotte Dumartheray, with a strangeness worthy of David Bennent, the hero of Drum; Schlöndorff’s film.
Talented and homogeneous singers
We cannot name all the singers. Nils Wanderer in Oberon, who is also a dancer (we realize that!) does not have a great projection but, in the softness of his high notes, he reinforces the mystery of this “apart” Oberon, especially against the health, as we have said, of Tytania. Among the lovers -Antoinette Dennefeld in Hermia, Louise Kemény in Héléna- we will distinguish more the tenor almost di grace by David Portillo and the handsome baritone by Charles Rice, who really (but not only) has a timbre made for Broadway. Flawless ensemble of “craftsmen” dominated, as we have said, by Bottom but also by the gentle Flute of Gwilym Bowen – because it is quite an art, when he disguises himself as Thisbe, to sing so precisely out of tune.
Puck (Charlotte Dumartheray) worn by Oberon (Nils Wanderer) C) Simon Gosselin
And Lille really musicians
Congratulations to the Young Choir of Hauts-de-France (and to the fairies Spider Web, Mustard Seed, Butterfly and Pea Flower) And congratulations to the instrumentalists of the National Orchestra of Lille for the beautiful work of musical lace and homogeneity accomplished, obviously under the authority of a Guillaume Tourniaire who is also, with Pelly, one of the great winners of the evening, as careful to render the moods of the work as to hold the stage under his bare hands (without baguette). Mention should be made, alongside the technicians who are very gifted for getting around…in the night (in black uniforms), the magnificent lighting work accomplished by Michel Leborgne and his team.
And… yes, Pelly, who also knew how to make excellent actors out of his singers, took his revenge.
A Midsummer Night’s dream by Benjamin Britton. Directed by Laurent Pelly. Musical direction by Guillaume Tourniaire. Lille Opera, 9, 11, 13, 18 and 20 May at 8 p.m. May 15 and 22 at 4 p.m.
An excellent initiative: free broadcasting on May 20 at 8 p.m. in various towns in Hauts-de-France: Mézières-sur-Oise (02), Aniche, Fourmies, Houplin-Ancoisne, Jeumont, Le Quesnoy, Lille, Lomme, Thumeries and Wallers-Arenberg (59), Aire-sur-la-Lys, Béthune, Condette and Lens (62) And we will note the number of small towns, where opera, of course, rarely comes.