Platée

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Opera dates
Title: Platée
Charles-Antoine Coypel: Pierre Jélyotte in the role of the nymph Platée, around 1745

Charles-Antoine Coypel : Pierre Jélyotte in the role of the nymph Platée , around 1745

Shape: “Ballet bouffon” in a prologue and three acts
Original language: French
Music: Jean-Philippe Rameau
Libretto : Adrien-Joseph Le Valois d'Orville
Literary source: Jacques Autreau
Premiere: March 31, 1745
Place of premiere: Grande Écurie in Versailles
Playing time: approx. 2 ½ hours
Place and time of the action: Greece in mythical times
people

In the prologue:

In ballet:

  • Platée, nymph ( naiad ) of a large swamp at the foot of the Cithéron mountain (tenor, haute-contre, travesty scroll )
  • Cithéron, King of the Mountains (Bass)
  • Jupiter , King of the Gods (Bass)
  • Junon , his wife (soprano)
  • Mercure , Messenger of the Gods (tenor)
  • Iris (speaking role)
  • Momus (tenor)
  • La Folie, the madness (soprano)
  • Clarine, fountain in the wake of Platée (soprano)
  • Une Naiade, Najade in the wake of Platée (soprano)
  • Elegant society, actors, gods and goddesses with entourage (choir)

Platée is an opera (original name: "Ballet bouffon", ballet comedy, Comédie-lyrique) in a prologue and three acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau based on a libretto by Adrien-Joseph Le Valois d'Orville. Rameau bought the rights to the libretto Platée ou Junon Jalouse ( Plataea, or The Jealous Juno ) from Jacques Autreau (1657-1745) and had it revised by d'Orville. The origin of the story is a myth that the Greek writer Pausanias shares in his description of Greece ( Ἑλλάδος Περιήγησις , Helládos Periēgēsis ). Rameau's first comic opera is about the simple-minded and ugly swamp nymph Platée, who believes that every man should fall madly in love with her immediately. It is used in a staged wedding with Jupiter to cure Jupiter's wife Juno of her excessive jealousy.

action

Prologue: The Birth of Comedy

After a night of partying, the choir wakes the drunken Thespis (ancient founder of drama and tragedy), who then intones a love song to Bacchus and snubs everyone with his infidelity to the serious subject.

Now the muse of the theater, Thalie , and Momus , god of ridicule and malice appear. They want to teach Jupiter's wife Juno a lesson because of her jealousy and therefore seek support from Thespis for a staged game. Amor appears unplanned and insists on carrying out the plan with him: “How can a game be without the inspiration of love?” He asks. All four decide to invent a new kind of drama that heals people from their imperfections and reveals the ridiculousness of the gods in Olympus (the gods as Rameau's allusion to the court society of his time).

first act

During a raging storm, Mercury descends from the sky and explains to the lamenting mountain god Cithéron that he was sent by Jupiter and that the storm was kindled by Juno's jealousy. Cithéron suggests a joke: Jupiter will pretend to propose marriage to the ugly Platée, only to make Juno even more jealous. Platée is a swamp nymph who believes that anyone who comes near her pond will be madly in love with her. Juno will catch the two of them at a mock wedding ceremony. Given the ugliness of Platée, she will realize that her jealousy is unfounded, and the couple Jupiter and Juno will be reunited in harmony.

After Platée arrives, Mercury leaves the scene to inform Jupiter. While Platée believes that it is Cithéron who is in love with her despite his refusals, she is pleased to hear from Mercury that Jupiter will soon descend from heaven to declare his love for her: “The god of thunder, who came down to earth because of her Your beauty, both his heart and the universe would like to throw at your feet. ”Clarine, the servant of Platée, sings a new storm. Platée stays while the water creatures ( Nereids ) then retreat to their damp home.

Second act

Meanwhile, Juno has been misdirected by Mercury to Athens to delay their arrival. Mercury and Cithéron find a hiding place to watch what is happening. Jupiter arrives, accompanied by Momus. It reveals itself first in the form of a donkey (the orchestra accompaniment imitates the neighing of a donkey), then as an owl and in the form of various birds, finally in the form of lightning and thunder. A longer divertissement follows , during which La Folie ("the madness") appears surprisingly . The slide tells the story of Apollo and Daphne as a warning to Platée not to get involved with Jupiter. Platée is alternately praised and mocked by the dancers and singers.

Third act

When the wedding guests of Jupiter and Platée arrive, Juno also returns from Athens angry and jealous. But she is persuaded by Mercury to hide until the crucial point in time. Momus appears disguised as Cupid and offers Platée presents. Jupiter and Platée begin the wedding ceremony, but Jupiter delays the promise of loyalty until Juno appears. When she finally sees Platée and removes her veil, she realizes that the whole wedding was a staged illusion. The gods then rise back to Olympus. Platée sinks back into her pond, humiliated.

Background of the opera

Comical operas were relatively seldom performed in France during the Baroque period . The musicologist Cuthbert Girdlestone is surprised that apparently none of Rameau's contemporaries noticed the innovative character of the opera Platée . Rameau may have been inspired by an earlier comic opera, e.g. B. from Les Amours de Ragonde by Jean-Joseph Mouret (1742) or from Joseph Bodin de Boismortier's comic ballet opera Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse (1743).

Reception and performance history

The opera was initially referred to as “ballet bouffon”, later as “comédie-lyrique”, which is designed in a style similar to Rameau's late work Les Paladins . It was premiered on March 31, 1745 in the now splendidly expanded rooms of the Great Stables in Versailles . The occasion of the performance was the wedding celebration of Louis, Dauphin of France , son of King Louis XV. , and the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain , according to contemporary sources, as the title character was no beauty. Instead of getting the composer into trouble because of this, the performance at Versailles was apparently well received and Rameau was appointed a few months later to the position of royal court composer with a sizeable annual income.

Platée was a highly regarded opera during Rameau's lifetime. It even appealed to critics who were otherwise reserved about his compositional style. Friedrich Melchior Grimm considered it a “sublime work”, and even Rameau's opponent Jean-Jacques Rousseau called it “divine”. The reason for this praise was probably that the critics saw Rameau with the comic opera Platée in the footsteps of the Italian opera buffa .

Little is known about the premiere, except that the title role was taken on by the haute-contre (high tenor) Pierre Jélyotte , a famous performer. It is believed that the opera was included in the wedding party program as a replacement for another, unfinished commissioned work and that Rameau originally planned the premiere in Paris. Rameau later revised the opera in collaboration with the famous librettist Ballot de Sovot and performed it in this version on February 9, 1749 at the Paris Opera .

The premiere was quite successful, although there was some criticism of the libretto. The work was performed in 1750 and again in 1754, always with the second haute-contre of the opera - La Tour (often also Latour), who had sung the Thespis in the first performance - in the lead role. The re-performance in 1754 fell during the so-called Buffonist dispute , in which u. a. Leonardo Leo's opera buffa I Viaggiatori played a role. Platée was last performed in 1759 during Rameau's lifetime.

The next performance took place in Munich in 1901 , in a heavily adapted German version by Hans Schilling-Ziemssen. The first French-language revival in recent times was a production in Monte Carlo in 1917. The first revival in France took place in 1956 at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence with the young tenor Michel Sénéchal in the title role. In 1977 Sénéchal sang his role in another production. The opera was first performed in the United Kingdom in 1983 and in the United States in 1987. In 1997 the Edinburgh Festival showed a co-production by the New York City Opera and the Mark Morris Dance Group under the direction of Mark Morris, which has also been toured frequently in London and the United States.

Platée returned to the Paris Opera in April 1999 in a production by Laurent Pelly under the direction of Marc Minkowski . The performance series with Jean-Paul Fouchécourt and Paul Agnew in the title role was later released on DVD. For the summer 2007 festival season, the Santa Fe Opera took on the Paris production of Laurent Pelly under the direction of Harry Bicket. In 2011, Platée was staged by Karoline Gruber at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf under the musical direction of Konrad Junghänel . In April 2011 the Amsterdam premiere took place in the Stadsschouwburg under the musical direction of René Jacobs (director: Nigel Lowery; choreography: Amir Hosseinpour). Notable singers in the title roles include Michel Sénéchal, Gilles Ragon, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, and Paul Agnew.

Cast of the first and second performance

role Pitch First performance
March 31, 1745 		Second performance
February 9, 1749
Prologue: La Naissance de la Comédie ( The Birth of Comedy )
Thespis Haute-Contre Jean-Paul Spesoller, commonly known as La Tour or Latour François Poirier
Momus Baritone or bass baritone Louis-Antoine Cuvillier (also: Cuvilliers or Cuvelier) Lamarre (also: La Marre)
Thalie soprano Marie Fel Marie-Angélique Coupé
L'Amour soprano Marie-Angélique Coupé (also: Couppé or Coupée) M.lle Rosalie
A satyr Bass baritone Benoit person
Vendangeuses soprano M.lles Carrou and Dalman M.lles Carrou and Chefdeville
Ballet ( lyric comedy )
Cithéron Bass baritone François Le Page (also: Lepage) François Le Page
Mercure Haute-Contre Jean Antoine Bérard François Poirier
Platée Haute-Contre Pierre Jélyotte La Tour
Clarine soprano M.lle Bourbonnais Marie-Angélique Coupé
Une Naiade soprano M.lle Metz ?
Jupiter Bass baritone Claude-Louis-Dominique Chassé de Chinais person
La slide soprano Marie Fel Marie Fel
Junon soprano Marie-Jeanne Fesch, m.lle Chevalier Louise Jacquet
iris actor ? ?

Discography

literature

  • Ivan A. Alexandre : Notes from the CD recording of Platée (conducted by Marc Minkowski).
  • Cuthbert Girdlestone: Jean-Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work . Dover, New York 1969, ISBN 0-486-21416-8 .
  • Amanda Holden (Ed.): The Viking Opera Guide . Viking, London 1993, ISBN 0-670-81292-7 .
  • Desirée Mays: Platée . In: Opera Unveiled , Volume 9. Art Forms, Santa Fe 2007, ISBN 978-0-9707822-6-7 .
  • Graham Sadler: The New Grove French Baroque Masters: Lully, Charpentier, Lalande, Couperin, Rameau . Norton & Co, Scranton / PA 1986, ISBN 0-393-30352-7 .

Web links

Commons : Platée  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Girdlestone, p. 436.
  2. ↑ Mays, p. 56.
  3. ↑ Mays, p. 57.
  4. ↑ With the allegorical figure on the slide , Rameau could allude to his new music theory. According to this, the melody is a result of the harmonic structure, in contrast to the Italian or traditional French melody formation. See Hella Bartning in the program for the performance of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein , Düsseldorf 2011, p. 11.
  5. ^ Girdlestone, p. 336.
  6. ↑ Ivan A. Alexandre, p. 28.
  7. ^ Girdlestone, p. 439.
  8. ^ Girdlestone, p. 440.
  9. ↑ Hella Bartning in the program for the performance of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf 2011, p. 8.
  10. ↑ The premiere was originally planned for February 4th, but had to be postponed due to the death of the Duchess of Orléans ( Platée in Le magazine de l'opéra baroque ).
  11. ↑ The sources report neither first names nor biographical information for La Tour. All that is known is that the singer must have still been alive in 1786, as records from the Académie Royale report: “when his name was included in a list of retirees still receiving pensions”. See Spire Pitou, The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers. Rococo and Romantic, 1715-1815 , Greenwood Press, Westport / CT 1985 ( ISBN 0-313-24394-8 ), p. 326.
  12. ↑ After Platée on Rameau Le site , accessed on 9 April of 2019.
  13. ↑ After Platée in Le magazine de l'opéra baroque , accessed on 9 April of 2019.
  14. ↑ a b c d e f g h First name unknown
  15. ↑ According to the Rameau page , this role was ascribed to Cuvillier, just as the singing character was ascribed to Momos. This seems impossible, however, as both roles appear on stage together.