After The beauty of the worldthe new opera by the tandem Michel Marc Bouchard and Julien Bilodeau, The Boy Queen, was created on Saturday at the Opéra de Montréal under the direction of Jean-Marie Zeitouni in a production by Angela Konrad. The power of the subject and the score proves once again that lyrical art, in crisis in the last half of the 20the century, has once again become a supreme mode of artistic expression.
Michel Marc Bouchard is a storyteller. But how can we encompass in a two-hour show the aspirations and heartbreaks of one of the most fascinating characters in history, who is part of a climate of religious wars and puts himself in almost permanent dissonance with the world that surrounds him, his people like the expectations of the court, marriage in mind?
From the room Christine, the boy-queen, created at TNM in 2012, and which gave rise to an adaptation filmed by Mika Kaurismäki in 2015, Michel Marc Bouchard creates a third proposition, centered on the aborted relationship of Queen Christine of Sweden with her lady-in-waiting, Countess Ebba Sparre . This choice responds to a dramaturgical objective: in opera we stage characters, not issues. Hence, undoubtedly, the removal of the character of the French ambassador.
The power of opera
Michel Marc Bouchard’s tour de force, compared to the fanciful and reductive scenario of Queen Christine filmed by Rouben Mamoulian in 1933 with Greta Garbo, is to subtly instill in its libretto, here through a dialogue between Chancellor Oxenstierna and his son, there through the emotion aroused by Descartes’ experience on the seat of emotions, of data histories that frame the issues. We then talk about the importance of peace, free will or the elevation of society through knowledge.
Michel Marc Bouchard goes even further, using nature – an element very well managed in the scenography and by the video – to portray the Nordicity, the strength of character of the sovereign, but also the hiatus of her priorities with those of her people (chorus from the beginning of IIe act, where these people are bored of not waging war). This nature also makes it possible to create dreamlike elements, such as off-stage screams simulating a “legend of the crying bear” accompanying the heroine’s torments. These cries are kulning, a very high-pitched Nordic song aimed at rounding up herds.
One scene loses a lot in the opera: that of the sexualization of the Christine-Ebba relationship, when the sovereign asks Ebba to try on a luxurious dress in front of her, but remains unmoved on stage instead of living her impulses. Two scenes win: the confrontation between Christine and her mother, thanks to an almost unreal “madness act” by Aline Kutan, and Descartes’ experiment in dissecting the skull to highlight the seat of emotions. This introduces the ethical issues which then found the opposition between Protestant Sweden (we submit to God who guides destiny) and the Catholic world (free will is possible), and at the same time opens up essential reflections of Christine on her torments and her future.
Always a woman, never a queen
For his third opera, Julien Bilodeau has once again achieved a masterstroke. Yes, a big orchestra was needed, but not so much to go “bing-bang” for two hours, like Elektra. The composer’s challenge is to find singularities in each painting or situation, often defusing, with wit, what is happening. Thus, when Descartes is about to cut up a skull, Bilodeau almost uses humor.
Similarly, Descartes’ first philosophy lesson is punctuated by a quasi-parody of court music from the first half of the 17th century.e century (imitations of beats of chitarra). And there is the use of “the great history of opera” in the scene of Christine’s mother’s madness, a genre reserved for sopranos coloratura in the 19th centurye century, or in the use of glass harmonica sounds as a leitmotif which repeatedly signals to us Christine’s feelings for Ebba.
Christine, not very wicked and cruel compared to reality, is, here, always a woman, never a queen, and we can be surprised by the familiarity with which the protagonists approach her. Her two suitors each commit outright sexual assault. This softening of Christine in the show even wins the vocal profile. Joyce El-Khoury, an excellent singer, but who sang Madame Butterfly here, takes on a role that would require a Turandot with a voice as chilling as the blade of a saber.
While waiting to find the next Birgit Nilsson, who will give The Boy Queen its true dimension, we would like to tip our hat to El-Khoury and the entire team of this creation, in particular to Aline Kutan and the tenor Isaiah Bell as Johan, a crazy, strangely outrageous parody of the historical character of Count Magnus, the good part of Sweden (how can such a moronic Johan care that Christine leaves with Velázquez? Is it even credible that he knows who this painter is?).
It is up to Count Karl Gustav to realign the pieces of the puzzle of this drama of the dissimilarity between a sovereign and her people. The vocal authority of Etienne Dupuis fits perfectly in a show admirably performed by Jean-Marie Zeitouni, richly served by the OSM and a sober and fair visual framework, all cold grey, in phase with Christine’s uneasiness, and which radiates with blue when she falls in love and with gilding and light when, ultimately, she takes the gamble on freedom.