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by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, directed by Marshall Pynkoski

Opera Atelier, Koerner Hall, Toronto

April 9-13, 2025

David: “Auprès de Jonathas, Seigneur, l’amour m’appelle”

Opera Atelier has completed its 2025/26 season with a spectacular production of a major rarity – David and Jonathan (1688) by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704). OA Co-Artistic Directors Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunnesse Zingg staged the opera at the Chapelle Royale du Château de Versailles in 2022. The production was a such a success that three weeks after the run in Toronto ends, Pynkoski and Zingg return to Versailles to remount their production. We in Toronto are extraordinarily privileged to have a company like Opera Atelier willing to trust its audience to welcome such a major but generally unknown work.

OA has staged works by Charpentier before, most notably his one-act opera Actéon (1683) in 1987, 1993, 1998, 2005 and 2018 and his one full-length secular opera Médée (1693) in 2002 and 2017. These operas helped prepare audiences for Charpentier’s general soundworld, but they do not prepare us for the incredible level of invention of David and Jonathan (David et Jonathas in the original). The reason is that unlike Actéon or Médée, David et Jonathas was not written for performance at court and therefore did not have to follow current assumptions concerning how an opera should be written.

Charpentier wrote David et Jonathas for the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-Grand which allowed him to use a number of techniques found in oratorios but not operas. These include two choruses (one on stage, one off stage), interchanges between a soloist and the chorus and the profusion of duets, trios and quartets whenever appropriate to the action rather than saving ensembles and choral number until the end of each act as in opera. Those familiar with 17th- and 18th-century French opera will be amazed at how Charpentier’s music blooms with the joy of invention when freed of the constraints of court opera. Charpentier, unlike his rival Lully, notably includes long arias exploring the psychology of the main characters. The opera was so successful that it was performed at other Jesuite colleges up to 1741.

The main difficulty with the work for a modern audience is that it demands that the audience be thoroughly familiar with its subject matter. The opera’s original audience were students and teachers of religion. Also, when the piece was first performed, each act of the opera was followed by one act of the five-act Latin play Saul by Père Étienne Chamillard (1656–1730). The play focussed on the external action, the opera on the characters’ internal conflicts. In the Prologue and first two acts of Charpentier’s opera, this makes the action hard to follow since the characters seldom refer to each other by name.

In the Prologue you would only know that Saül had asked the Witch of Endor to raise the ghost of Samuel by reading the libretto since none of those characters’ names appear in the sung text. Acts 3 to 5 progressively gain in cohesiveness that results in a series extraordinarily powerful scenes between David, Jonathas and Saül. Before seeing the opera, therefore, it is very helpful to read 1 Samuel 10 to 2 Samuel 5 to understand the whole context of the events depicted in the opera.

Before the action begins God has chosen Saul to be King of the Israelites and David has killed Goliath. God has given Saul a task to fulfil i.e. to destroy the Amalekites completely, including every man, woman and child and all their livestock (1 Samuel 15:3). Saul, however, does not do this and God takes away his favour. David becomes a hero to the Israelites through his exploits in battle which only ignites Saul’s jealousy. A further insult to Saul is that David, who had been Saul’s favourite, has fallen in love with Saul’s son Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1-5), who says he loves David as himself. Thus, Saul now is bereft of the love of God, his favourite and his own son.

The Prologue of the opera begins with Saül visiting a figure called “La Pythonisse”, who in the Bible is called the Witch of Endor to find out why God has turned his face away from him and how to defeat the Philistines (1 Samuel 28). La Pythonisse summons the Ghost of Samuel who pronounces Saül’s terrible doom: “Enfants, amis, gloire, couronne, / Le ciel va te ravir tout ce qu’il t’a donné”.

In Act 1 we learn that Saül has become so jealous he has banished David, who has sought refuge with the Philistines. Achis, the King of the Philistines tells David that David and Saül must meet to decide whether there will be war or peace. Unfortunately, in Act 3 Joabel (invented by the librettist), an Israelite general also jealous of David, tells Saül that David’s plan for peace is a trick which causes Saül to continue his war against the Philistines.

Though David is now fighting for the enemies of the Israelites, David hopes that both Jonathas and Saül will be safe. But, in Act 5 Saul loses the battle, Jonathas is killed, Saül commits suicide and David is proclaimed the new King of the Israelites (2 Samuel 5:1-3). Charpentier ends the opera with an effect quite unlike any other baroque opera. While the Israelites celebrate David as their new king, Charpentier reveals that David cannot celebrate because he has been emotionally shattered by the death of Jonathas. Thus, the opera concludes with the total contrast public and private moods.

For the Toronto production OA has brought over two of the French singers who starred in the Versailles production – David Witczak as Saül and Antonin Rondepierre as Joabel. Otherwise, the cast is made up of OA regulars. Chief among these is Colin Ainsworth as David. Ainsworth has given us years of fine performances but his performance as David is his most moving and most complex portrayal ever. Ainsworth can still produce the clear high notes that made him so well known, but he now has a full range of colour at his command which he uses to beautiful effect in portraying David’s conflicting emotions or his devastating grief in his long aria over the dying Jonathas.

Mireille Asselin’s attractive, high, bright soprano brings out all the innocence and youth of Jonathas and blends wonderfully with Ainsworth’s tenor. After David, Saül is the most important character in the opera. French baritone David Witczak has a fine, full voice but, quite contrary to OA style, he is given to overacting. He starts his depiction of Saül so big in the Prologue hat he has nowhere to go. Saül is a great role since the character moves from despair to rage and finally madness, but Witczak plays the role if Saül were mad from the start. The way he deforms the text to convey this madness, including shouting various lines, decreases the clarity of his words.

Witczak’s compatriot, tenor Antonin Rondepierre, however, is quite different and fits in with the OA style perfectly. Rondepierre does have the advantage of having sung with OA just last year as Acis in Acis and Galatea and is able to convey Joabel’s anger and deceit with a restraint that makes those qualities all the stronger. Among the minor characters, Stephen Hegedus stands out as the Ghost of Samuel. The sharp glint of his obsidian-like bass-baritone cuts through the orchestra to establish the character as authoritative and frightening.

The work of both the onstage and the off-stage choruses is impeccable. Again and again, one is overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of their sound and their gorgeous harmonies. Charpentier has the onstage ensemble sing in every combination from solos to octets, often breaking the group of eight into two quartets and having them sing alternate verses of a chorus. When the onstage ensemble sings with the 13-member off-stage chorus, their glorious sound fills the hall. As usual the choral contributions are immeasurably enhanced with the elegant dances choreographed by Jeannette Lajeunnesse Zingg, this time with a full complement of twelve dancers.

Gerard Gauci has created an impressive set for the production. It uses the double staircases he designed for La Resurrezione in 2023 and adds to it four two-storey-tall pillars standing in front of the staircases. Around the sides of the back balcony, he has placed several hangings that look like tapestries. Thus, he has transformed the bare Koerner Hall stage into a 17th-century palais à volonté, the typical palatial set used for stage tragedy. The advantage of Gauci’s design is that depending on Kimberly Purtell’s creative lighting, the set can look either like the interior or the exterior of a palace, thus making is suitable for the opera’s many locations. Michael Gianfrancesco has set the action in OA’s usual vague period of the 16th- to 17th century with woman wearing light, ankle-length gowns with embroidered stomachers and the men in leggings, musketeer or pirate boots, loose blouses and waistcoats.

David Fallis conducts the soloists, choruses and 23-member Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra with panache, obviously relishing the opera’s many innovations in French baroque style. Now having seen David et Jonathas, I can fully understand why it caused such a sensation in France and why Chapelle Royale du Château de Versailles will be remounting the work this year. Initially, it feels like there is almost too much to take in in terms of plot and in terms of Charpentier’s invention. Having seen it once, however, I would dearly like to see it again to concentrate more fully on the music, since as it turns out, the story is not as complicated as it first appears. David et Jonathas is an unforgettable experience and will certainly be considered the operatic high point of the year.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Mireille Asselin as Jonathas and Colin Ainsworth as David; the ensemble of singers and dancers gathered about Mireille Asselin as Jonathas; David Witczak as Saül; artists of the Atelier Ballet. © 2025 Bruce Zinger.

For tickets visit: www.operaatelier.com.