Reviews 2005
Reviews 2005
✭✭✭✭✭
by Jean-Baptiste Lully, directed by Marshall Pynkoski
Opera Atelier, Elgin Theatre, Toronto
November 5-12, 2005
To open its 20th season Opera Atelier presented the North American premiere of Armide (seen November 5, 2005) by Jean-Baptiste Lully, a work often considered the pinnacle of the 17th-century tragédie lyrique. Though there is no lack of spectacle, what sets Armide (1686) apart from Lully’s other operas is its intense exploration of the psychology of the title character. The production was among OA’s finest and certainly its most sensuous.
The libretto by Philippe Quinault based on Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata centers on Armide, a Muslim sorceress, intent on capturing Renaud, the most valiant of the Christian knights on the First Crusade. To their mutual confusion, the two arch-enemies fall in love and are shattered by the experience. Remarkable for the period, Quinault, unlike Tasso, emphasizes that Renaud’s love for Armide is not due to magic but real, and he excludes any hint of Armide’s later conversion to Christianity, concluding instead with her despair at Renaud’s departure.
All the singers had fully mastered both the declamatory style that dominates the work and OA’s stylized mode of acting where, as directed by Marshall Pynkoski, formality only serves to heighten emotion. Both principals, mezzo soprano Stephanie Novacek and tenor Colin Ainsworth have appeared with OA several times before. Novacek’s voice has darkened without losing its sparkle while her lower register has become richer. She superbly delineated Armide’s transformation from lofty rage to utter despair with the turning point, the realization that she loves Renaud in the celebrated meditation “Enfin, il est en ma puissance,” exquisitely performed. Ainsworth’s crystalline tenor, now more powerful than ever, shone in Renaud’s sleep aria “Plus j'observe ces lieux”. Their scenes together were musically and dramatically thrilling.
In the supporting cast sopranos Jennie Such and Monica Whicher were charming as Armide’s two confidantes, bass baritone Olivier Laquerre and tenor Michiel Schrey well-paired as comic Crusaders searching for Renaud, bass Alain Coulombe in fine voice as Armide’s sorcerer uncle, and bass baritone Curtis Sullivan vocally and visually dazzling as La Haine.
Armide is a perfect vehicle for OA since it tells its story as much through dance as through song. Music frequently passes back and forth between the singers and the dancers who often share the stage in beautifully integrated passages choreographed by Jeannette Zingg. In a departure for OA set designer Gerard Gauci and costume designer Dora Rust-D’Eye turned for inspiration from period European sources to the jewel-like colours and precise lines of Persian miniatures. The front scrim even featured a massive tughra of the opera’s title transcribed into Persian. With an unerring sense of pacing conductor Andrew Parrott drew an incomparably sumptuous sound from the 31-member Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. The vitality and passion so abundant in this Armide bode well for OA’s next twenty years.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Opera News 2006-02.
Photo: Colin Ainsworth as Renaud with artists of the Atelier Ballet. ©Bruce Zinger.
2005-11-06
Armide