Ravel double bill, at Glyndebourne, Seven magazine review

By accident or design, some themes have run through Glyndebourne’s 2012 season with remarkable consistency. No sooner had the animals who inhabit Janácek’s Cunning Little Vixen made way for the hippies in the Swinging Andalusia staging of Mozart’s Figaro than elements of both turn up in the Ravel double bill that forms the final opening of the summer.

In L’Enfant et les sortilèges, nature is out in force, eager to avenge the Child’s petulant and destructive behaviour, and Laurent Pelly’s costumes for the animals and trees in his new production are full of unsettling enchantment. His circa-1970 staging of L’Heure espagnole, by contrast, is more knowing, and the flowery poet Gonzalve, hopelessly unequal to the nymphomaniacal demands of the clockmaker’s frustrated wife Concepción, seems to have strayed in from a slightly specialised commune.

Though the ubiquitous Pelly has, of late, seemed an increasingly facile director, here he returns to fine form, matching his Gallic wit to the composer’s. Which is not to say he doesn’t occasionally lapse into broad Carry On routines in L’Heure, where the mere suggestion of something saucy sends all the clocks in Torquemada’s shop into a spin.

But both productions are visually arresting: Caroline Ginet’s set for L’Heure heaves with domestic detritus, and Barbara de Limburg’s design for L’Enfant evokes a surrealist wonderland where outsize furnishings dwarf the Child.

Yet what really distinguishes the evening is Glyndebourne’s wonderful casting, with an unusually high proportion of francophone singers: Stéphanie d’Oustrac is musically immaculate as the man-eating Concepción, François Piolino funny as the ineffectual Torquemada, and Paul Gay super as the elderly suitor Don Inigo. Elliot Madore is amusingly doltish as Ramiro, the beefcake muleteer who delivers the goods.

The diminutive Khatouna Gadelia is ideally bright in the title role of L’Enfant, and Kathleen Kim spins brilliant coloratura as the Fire. Kazushi Ono captures the delicate detail and sweep of both scores, encouraging the London Philharmonic to luxuriate in Ravel’s orchestration.

To Aug 25; www.glyndebourne.com

This review also appeared in SEVEN magazine, free with the Sunday Telegraph

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