This article is the first in a series of three pieces on the 2009 Aix festival. Read the other two pieces in our Culture section.
In the beautiful setting of the Episcopal Palace courtyard at Aix’s summer music festival, it’s a rare production indeed that is resoundingly booed, so the negative uproar that greeted director Olivier Py’s curtain call after the opening performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo on Saturday night was slightly shocking, especially after the enthusiastic applause for the cast and for conductor Marc Minkowski and his orchestra, the Musicians du Louvre-Grenoble.
Born in Grasse in 1965, actor and novelist Py is best known as a theater director—he’s currently head of the L’Odéon–Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris—but over the last decade or so he has also taken on operas in Nancy, Lyon, Geneva, Moscow and, most recently, a production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Opéra de Paris.
For this first project in Aix, his emphasis was all on overwrought theatrics, at the expense of Mozart and music. Idomeneo, King of Crete is based on ancient Greek legend: Caught in a tempest while returning from the Trojan War, Idomeneo promises Neptune that if he and his ship are saved, he will offer the sacrifice of the first person he sees when safely ashore.
That turns out to be his own son, Idamante, who during his father’s absence has fallen in love with the captive Trojan princess Ilia, and freed her fellow captives. Idomeneo cannot bring himself to kill Idamante, and the ensuing wrath of Neptune wreaks havoc on Crete. Further plot complication comes with Electra, princess of Argos, Crete’s ally and Ilia’s rival for Idamante’s affection.
In Py’s modern-dress, all black-white-and silver version, the captured Trojans are African boat people, the princess Ilia is dressed like Michelle Obama, the Cretan soldiers are Hamas-Hezbollah clones in balaclava masks wielding assault rifles, and Idamante, in an outdated black frock coat, seems to be an architect planning a model city when he’s not pining for Ilia. It’s all set on modular sections of metal scaffolding and staircases, which are continually rolled around into various configurations by black-clad stagehands, with singers in full aria aboard for the rides.
Py has also reinstated some ballet interludes that are often cut, and here they certainly should have been—both the choreography and the dancers are unworthy of any professional stage, much less one as prestigious as Aix.
By the time the dancers have re-enacted bits of the story here and there in a sort of Grand Guignol version of instant replay—much stage blood is spilled and smeared—the whole affair becomes ridiculous.
But Mozart can withstand almost anything, even this, and the music of this slightly-lesser-known early work—first performed in 1781 when the composer was 25—is wonderful from start to finish, and the cast is uniformly excellent. American tenor Richard Croft brings a rich, warm timbre to the title role, French tenor Yann Beuron as Idamante floats his soft notes with boyish grace, and French soprano Mireille Delunsch may be the only singer-actress on stage today who could bring off Electra’s final mad scene in full voice while literally dipping her hands into a bucket of blood. And as Ilia—in perfectly executed if politically incorrect blackface (dark-brown-face, in fact)—Belgian soprano Sophie Karthäuser—is impeccable, and her aria “Se il padre perdei” pure pleasure.
On in repertory in the courtyard theater of the Episcopal Palace until July 17.
On the program for Sunday night: Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld
This article is the first in a series of three pieces on the 2009 Aix festival. Read the other two pieces in our Culture section.
