Warts and All

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The New York Sun

We all know we have to kiss a lot of frogs to find our perfect princess, but the point has never hit home so completely as it did Tuesday evening during the performance of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Platee” at City Opera. It is easy to confuse Jean-Philippe with Jean-Baptiste Lully, the originator of the French opera tradition that Rameau subsequently developed. But recall that Lully has the most interesting demise in music history (he died of blood poisoning after ramming his conducting staff through his foot).


Rameau might have died when he dared present an opera about the king of the gods trying to make his queen jealous by wooing an extremely vain but painfully homely swamp thing, for the French court was abuzz at the time about the plan for their Dauphin to marry the Spanish Infanta, a girl who, in modern vernacular, had “a good personality.” But he didn’t. And though Voltaire dubbed Platee “the most detestable show I have ever seen or heard,” Rameau ended up with a court appointment soon after the premiere. This week it is being performed as part of the New York Early Music Celebration – more about this festive occasion next week, when I report from the Frick Collection.


Dryads, nymphs, burlesque dancers, bartenders, snails, slugs, caterpillars, cupids, drunks, gods, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers – no one could save this performance from innumerable bouts of tedium. Strictly speaking, “Platee” is not an opera at all, but a divertissement that depends on comic devices untranslatable to modern audiences. I doubt more than a handful of patrons this night realized that some of the biggest laughs are reserved for Rameau’s clever shuffling of the order of the dances. An unusually placed sarabande did not generate the peals of laughter – or even a snicker. These types of sarcastic jokes and the corresponding French alliterative passages simply fell upon deaf ears.


The musical plan is also anathema to our short-attention-span contemporary crowds: a snippet of stately melody, followed by lots of recitative, followed by a spirited gigue or chaconne. This was fine for the first few iterations. But by intermission the line at the gents (where the most perceptive critical comments are overheard) was not discussing the fabulous Mizrahi costumes nor the athletic efforts of the Mark Morris Dance Group, but the repetition of the same musical pattern ad nauseam.


“Platee” is an ensemble piece, and it therefore escapes any individual analysis of singing qualities. Suffice it to say that no one of exceptional voice would take a part in it, as there are literally dozens of characters, each with only a few short passages. But Platee herself – or rather, himself – is a standout role and Jean-Paul Fouchecourt handled it well. Even modern audiences can appreciate the travesti (an unusually high tenor) portraying a female character of exceptionally misplaced vanity.


Mr. Fouchecourt understood that this is not a falsetto – for that was employed for a high-minded characterization – but simply a comic device of somewhat low pedigree. Dressed to perfection as a combination siren and gnome, he made the most of his stage business, handling that lorgnette like a weapon. Especially illuminating was his use of his elongated fingers to waggle as visual emblems of the many trills in the music.


Dance is not my field, so I would not presume to judge the horde of its exponents that rushed onto the stage at virtually every opportunity, but as staging it all seemed excessively busy to me throughout. On the other hand, given the sameness of the music, the Morris dancers seemed to be forever exercising the role of the cavalry, riding onto the scene just in time to save the performance from total rigidity.


The dancers are also the heart and soul of the prologue, a convention of the time meant to establish the role of the gods in the entertainment of men. Here the integration of dance and music worked much less well than in the ballet bouffon to come, as the director relied on that most faded and overused of metaphors: the “modernization” card. Did we really need to see businessmen and exotic dancers, busboys and waitresses, sequins and Heineken signs? The bar opened early in this production, the action beginning in dumb show long before the lights dimmed. In retrospect, I probably should have wandered up and had a couple of drinks.


To stage “Platee” again was, in many respects, a noble experiment. Yet, judging by the tepid reaction of the crowd, it was not an unqualified success. It was just too little cake and far too much frosting, but it is hard not to admire the effort, warts and all.


The New York Sun

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