The premiere of the opera Enigma by Patrick Burgan, based on the play Enigmatic variations by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt premiered in 1996, on Sunday, was saved by tenor Jean-Michel Richer who agreed to appear on stage even though he was certainly not in his best mood. As for the opera itself, the composer can rejoice in being able to count on such a competent conductor and such an intelligently conceived performance.
Reworking in the form of an opera a lapidary behind closed doors theatrically designed to reconcile a reflection on love through a joust of actors is a particular challenge. The opera tradition is nourished by arias, duets and ensembles. How was Patrick Burgan going to organize the face-to-face meeting? Even more, how was he going to feed him?
If music confiscates the theatrical rhythm by imposing its own temporality, it can also add layers, as we discussed with Michel Marc Bouchard and Julien Bilodeau about the conception of The Boy Queen.
If music manages to impose identifiable themes or colors and timbres linked to a particular character or state of mind, the orchestra becomes a “suggesting character” which can allow us to read the thoughts of the protagonists. This is the challenge and, ultimately, the only interest in transforming a theatrical success as exemplary as Enigmatic variations.
Known terrain
Enigma, does opera serve any purpose? The response will vary depending on sensitivities. The project Enigma certainly satisfied a composer who seems intoxicated by the idea and the privilege of projecting orchestral sonorities onto the words of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. The misanthropic Nobel-winning writer Abel Znorko has a tantrum? The orchestra goes wild in a mini way Elektra with brass and percussion. He looks down on his host, the pseudo-journalist Erik Larsen, by serving him a “little bucket”? It feels like Baron Ochs in The Knight of the Rose. Are we talking about his island lifestyle? It’s a kind of nautical Vaughan Williams that insinuates itself beneath the text.
Patrick Burgan is a cultivated musician who recycles, in a few chords, here the Concerto in memory of an angel or there Tristan and Isolde. When Larsen talks about the death of his wife, Hélène, guess what we hear? Siegfried’s Death Timpani (Wagner: The twilight of the Gods), obviously ! These are “catalogue tunes”, but without Don Giovanni.
The insertions of extracts from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, more or less reworked, are completely justified, and desired by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, when the character of Hélène is mentioned. They are extremely skillful and well shot, as is the key scene of the evocation of the Enigma Variations in the room.
The weather
The question is that of expansion. This musical enjoyment (or complacency) is more orchestral than vocal. Because in the treatment of singing, we are in the register of this “ Sprechgesang — spoken song — generic American opera style from the years 2000-2010” (but in its French version), is it worth a stretch of time and debate? For example, the story of Hélène’s death never ends.
On the other hand, the reduction of the piece to an opera libretto is brilliant and, above all, the show designed by Paul-Émile Fourny and Patrick Méeüs adds at least as many layers as the music with its two framed spaces which are illuminated by variable shades depending on the situation.
We hope, for spectators of future performances, that Jean-Michel Richer will recover. Because he was visibly diminished vocally, as we were told, while the essence of the piece, and therefore of the opera, is to have two protagonists on equal terms. Antoine Bélanger has assimilated the role of Znorko very well, and he finds himself with an obvious ascendancy over his diminished partner who should dominate the second act more than that, a second act which surpasses the first in interest. Having already directed the creation in Metz, Daniel Kawka admirably masters a very rich score.
We can let ourselves be tempted, in particular because Schmitt’s plot is, for those who don’t know it, absolutely formidable, because the music takes us into reassuring territories, and because the scenography and the staging are real. achievements.