Rameau : Les Indes Galantes [VOD]
Rameau : Les Indes Galantes
When the European youth chooses War above Love, Cupid decides to seek out new followers on other continents. The opera thus recounts the way people love, hate, envy or trust overseas, all the while asking its western audience a burning question: how do we love right?
In Dreams of Babel, a documentary about the dance prodigy Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui released on DVD by Bel Air Classiques in 2010, the choreographer explained how shifting identities, multiculturalism, and his own plural heritage as the son of an immigrant, had shaped his dramaturgy and artistic inspiration. Thus, to take on the stage direction for Les Indes Galantes, whose multiple plots take place in a fantasized exotic « elsewhere » supposed to mirror the European society, meant for Cherkaoui bringing the tension between identity and alterity to a whole new level. And the choreographer pushes his reflection much farther than mere baroque specular aesthetics: his Indes Galantes raise the sensible issues of population movements, fragmented and ever-changing territories and borders, but also the refugee crisis that has shaken Europe to its very core…
For this new production at the Prinzregenten Theater, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui brought his own dance ensemble, the Eastman company, as well as a brilliant vocal cast, among which Anna Prohaska, François Lis or Lisette Oropesa. Ivor Bolton conducts a Münchner Festspielorchester at the top of its game.
BONUS : Making-of (14 min.)
Rameau : Les Indes Galantes [VOD]
Opéra-ballet in a prologue and four entrées
Music : Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 – 1764)
Libretto : Louis Fuzelier
Hébé / Zima : Lisette Oropesa
Bellone : Goran Juric
L’Amour / Zaïre : Ana Quintans
Osman / Ali : Tareq Nazmi
Emilie : Elsa Benoit
Valère / Tacmas : Cyril Auvity
Huascar / Don Alvaro : François Lis
Phani / Fatime : Anna Prohaska
Don Carlos / Damon : Mathias Vidal
Adario : John Moore
Dancers of Eastman
Münchner Festspielorchester
Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Freibourg
Conductor : Ivor Bolton
Stage direction & choreography : Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Sets : Anna Viebrock
Dramaturgy : Miron Hakenbeck, Antonio Cuenca Ruiz
Chorus master : Detlef Bratschke
« Musically, the evening could hardly have been bettered. Conductor Ivor Bolton, a Baroque specialist, was nothing short of spectacular, guiding with enthusiastic gestures the large Munich Festival Orchestra, a group consisting only of Baroque specialists brought in from far and wide, in an inspiring and inspired manner. The orchestra itself played splendidly. » – OperaNews.com
« Cherkaoui has found a movement synthesis which moves: the dazzle is just a delightful extra. What seems at first a high-handed way with the dramaturgy of the work proves to be the best way I have ever encountered in this repertory to break through to its enduring essence. » – OperaToday.com
« A modern and extremely convincing production, which was enthusiastically received by the audience. » – Seenandheard-internation.com
« The story that love will conquer all, told in a soft manner geared to please the ruling classes, is too simple for today’s traumatised world; Cherkaoui works with delicate grace around the edges of these uncertainties. His dance is theatre, his theatre dance, and there is none of the awkwardness that often accompanies ballet in opera; here singers and dancers move seamlessly together, swapping roles and sides as the work demands, leaving us in a pleasant state of uncertainty. In addition to the standard baroque gender-bending and master-slave swaps, Cherkaoui blurs the line between victim and aggressor, between object and objectifier, between cultural appropriation and the appropriated. It is beautiful, lyrical and humane. » – The Financial Times
“Overwhelming and meaningful” – Klassisk
