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Royal Opera of Versailles: Molière or the art of the total spectacle

2021-09-17T10:36:48.307Z


To celebrate the 400th anniversary of his birth, Versailles plays back music linked to the work of the playwright.


If there is a popular writer, it is Molière. Let's look around us, the world is populated by his characters. Everywhere Harpagon, Alceste, Célimène, Tartuffe, Armande, Trissotin, Scapin, Monsieur Jourdain, George Dandin ... About

George Dandin

, Montherlant said that his grandmother, who had taken him to see this play at the Comédie-Française had risen abruptly:

"Allons-nous-en!" It's too stupid

.

"

Well, well, no offense to this lady, we'll see

George Dandin

at the Opéra Royal de Versailles played and directed by Michel Fau.

“In 1668

, a small textbook of school classics tells us in its introduction,

Molière was already a recognized man of the theater, and Louis XIV commissioned a comedy-ballet from him to celebrate a military victory. For this great royal entertainment, the author writes

George Dandin

with the composer Lully. "

Let's come back to Michel Fau:

“What interested me with

George Dandin,

it is precisely the story of these musical interludes which were hardly ever given since its creation.

I realized that this music was not only beautiful, but also brought a different take on the room.

I tried to rediscover the spirit and the style of that theater, the spirit of Versailles.

So I asked Christian Lacroix to imagine the costumes, to reinvent a baroque setting, as at the time.

I didn't want any modernization or historical reconstruction.

So I tried to imagine a 17th century theater with today's means. ”

Haunted house

As for Lully's music,

"it is the young conductor Gaétan Jarry who directs it

," continues Michel Fau.

At the beginning, we have the impression that the interludes are really there like entertainment then we realize that this one is an echo of the play, an echo which contradicts and enriches it. "

Louis XIV loved pranks and

George Dandin

is a very good one. But

“behind the farce

,” says Michel Fau, “

there is a tragic side, as always with Molière. The wickedness of the play is still amusing. "

Under the light moliéresque tea leaf which floats on the surface, the tragic always infuses.

Michel Fau had staged an opera in Versailles (

Dardanus

, by Rameau) but never played there:

“This theater is magnificent and its acoustics extraordinary. We have tried to create a scenography that can adapt to small theaters as well as to large modern venues. There is this somewhat nightmarish setting, this somewhat haunted house of Dandin which will go very well to the complexion of Versailles. "

As for Denis Podalydès, ten years later, he goes back to his dear

Bourgeois gentilhomme

and his approach is still the same:

"To celebrate the reunion of the arts (of music, song, dance, weapons and the theater which contains them all). ) in a comedy in which the protagonist is a perfect ignorant, here is an extraordinary subject: he who has the money knows nothing. "

What touches and enchants Denis Podalydès with Monsieur Jourdain is

“this dreamer in the midst of a family that does not dream and who nevertheless has his reasons, his dignity. He is a lover of the arts which nevertheless make it so bad for him. He is full of this prodigious energy to rise to a world that despises him. ”

Molière has been Denis Podalydès' playmate since school.

And when one becomes a member of the Comédie-Française like him, Molière is a rallying point,

“a standard and an obligation.

We are constantly brought back to it since it is the author who identifies or authenticates the House

.

»

Oh, it is not this official side which carries his enthusiasm,

« it is the poet, his irresistible dramatic genius »

.

Six hours of show

Vincent Dumestre has been conducting the Harmonic Poem since 1998. This musician is undoubtedly one of the most inventive and versatile artisans of the Baroque revival, one of the greatest musicians of first plucked string instruments. To say that his home is the Grand Siècle, that of the two Jean-Baptiste, Poquelin and Lully, a time when, he says,

“it was not unusual in an evening for a lyrical theatrical work to be streaked with danced ballets, musical interludes to which were therefore added to the theater dance, lyrical art, the orchestra… It was sometimes six or seven hours of uninterrupted performance! ”

According to Vincent Dumestre,

“When we remember all the shows that the two Jean-Baptiste gave there, playing this repertoire at Versailles makes one shudder!

I am particularly happy to show there the musical facet of these works -

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme

,

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac

,

la Pastorale comique

… The genius of Lully allows a very theatrical dramaturgy particularly present in these comedies.

Hence the creation of this concert program where the theatricality of the singers is not left out. ”

Pascal Rénéric in

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.

Pascal Victor / ArtComArt / Palace of Versailles

“George Dandin”, directed by Michel Fau, dir.

Gaétan Jarry, from January 4 to 8.

Molière / Charpentier: “The Pleasures of Versailles”, dir.

Sébastien Daucé, January 13.

Molière / Lully: "Le ballet des Jean Baptiste", dir.

Vincent Dumestre, January 14.

Lully: "Psyche", dir.

Christophe Rousset, January 30.

"Le Malade imaginaire", with the Comédie-Française troupe, from April 13 to 17.

“Le Bourgeois gentilhomme”, directed by Denis Podalydès, dir.

Christophe Coin, from June 9 to 19.

Lully / Charpentier: “Molière and his music”, choreography Hubert Hazebroucq, dir.

William Christie, June 25-26.

Source: lefigaro

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