Opera reviews: Les Fêtes d’Hébé and Ivan Magri/Iain Burnside

3 / 5 stars
Les Fêtes d’Hébé

THE baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Fêtes d’Hébé was a huge hit in the time of King Louis XV, with 80 performances in its first year and four revivals over the next three decades.

 Ivan Magri/Iain Burnside PH

Ivan Magri/Iain Burnside

Yet the Royal College of Music’s production last week is the first UK staging of the opera-ballet for nearly 300 years.

The music of Rameau seems to be a taste that British audiences have still to acquire, given that there have only been three staged productions of the composer’s work in the UK over the past 20 years. Part of the reason may be that for baroque fans George Frideric Handel’s operas just have more depth of character and humanity, with even the lesser-known works like Ormisda speaking to the heart. 

Rameau’s music is beautiful and plangent at times but his mythological subject matter is not involving, to say the least.

Les Fêtes d’Hébé is divided into a prologue and three parts featuring separately Poetry, Music and Dance. Hébé, goddess of youth (Pauline Texier), tired of the celestial company of Mount Olympus, descends to the banks of the Seine to watch what the mortal nymphs and shepherds get up to – mainly Cupid-inspired adventures.

The cast of young singers, the majority from France’s equivalent to the RCM International Opera School, the Academie De L’opera National De Paris, are of a high standard.

The combined talents of director/set designer Thomas Lebrun, lighting Françoise Michel, and costumes Laurianne Scimemi Del Francia, have conjured up a spare and elegant staging of monochrome with washes of colour. 

Lebrun’s choreography throws in some Pilates and Tai Chi-style movements, performed with envious flexibility by the dancers. Baroque specialist Jonathan Williams conducts. The Rosenblatt Recitals are noted for talent-spotting rising opera singers in one-off recitals. It was the turn of Sicilian tenor Ivan Magri last week to take to the platform with piano accompanist Iain Burnside.

After a slightly hesitant start, Magri hit his stride in Donizetti’s lovely aria Una Furtiva Lagrima from L’elisir D’Amore. As Magri takes the role of Nemorino in the revival of L’elisir at Covent Garden next month, it was doubly enjoyable to hear a preview. Magri’s lyric tenor voice movingly conveyed Nemorino’s moment of joy when he realises he is secretly loved by haughty Adina.

Magri chose an intriguing character study in juxtaposing two contrasting arias by the Duke of Mantua from Verdi’s Rigoletto. First there was the Duke’s heartfelt Parmi Veder La Lagrime (I can almost see the tears) after he learns that his latest passion, Gilda, has been abducted, followed straight on by the Duke at his most cynical in the famous La Donna è Mobile (Woman is fickle). Magri’s finely prolonged High C was a reminder that the singer had once studied under Luciano Pavarotti. 

The next Rosenblatt Recital, on May 9, will feature the young Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, who has received a string of prestigious awards including the Audience Prize at Placido Domingo’s Operalia 2015.

VERDICT: 4/5

Rameau’s Les Fêtes d’Hébé Royal College of Music, London SW7 (Run ended)

Ivan Magri/Iain Burnside Rosenblatt Recitals, Wigmore Hall, London W1 (One night only)

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