Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is stripped bare by Berlioz for this
opéra comique, which in Laurent Pelly’s production is long on beauty, short on
the grit and grunts of real love
It takes a
particularly wilful wit to alight on Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict as
the perfect operatic nod to a Shakespeare anniversary. To walk past Verdi’s Otello, Falstaff and Macbeth, to pass over Purcell’s Fairy Queen, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and
instead opt for this curiously and idiomatically French piece of musical
flummery, in which Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing finds itself stripped of any sour
notes and whipped up into a sugary dramatic froth, is bold indeed. If it
weren’t for the revival of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opening at
Glyndebourne later this season, it might even look a bit like taking le piss.
Lighter than a Frenchman’s promise, Béatrice et Bénédict is
the composer’s final operatic hurrah, the ‘caprice written with the point of a
needle’ that signalled his release from the labours of Les Troyens and
took him from the gilded world of grand opera to the sunnier landscape of opéra
comique. Jettisoning Don John, Dogberry and any other undesirable elements that
might cloud his elegant idyll, Berlioz leaves us with just a quartet of lovers,
the ‘merry war’ between Béatrice and Bénédict and the struggles of eccentric
choirmaster Somarone, the only conflict in this 90-minute musical
divertissement.
Faced with
so much Sicilian sunshine and so little substance, director Laurent Pelly seems
unconvinced. Housed by designer Barbara de Limburg in a series of oversized
boxes, his staging comes swathed in tissue paper and gift-wrapped in dove-grey
and white — the kind of production you might pick up on the rue Saint-Honoré
between a quick visit to Yves Saint Laurent and Dior. It’s terribly chic,
terribly pretty, and curiously devoid of joy — a millefeuille with nothing between
the layers. There may be many boxes (whole choruses emerge from them,
characters retreat to them, fall into them, climb on to them) but there’s only
one joke. Once we’ve got to the visual punchline — that, in a society of
conformists, Béatrice and Bénédict are the only ones thinking outside the box —
Pelly seemingly has little else to say about the characters that inhabit his
abstract, monochrome world.
Thinking inside the box: Stéphanie d’Oustrac
(Béatrice) and the chorus in ‘Béatrice et Bénédict’ at Glyndebourne
Which is a shame, because, despite one late cast
change and the loss of the original conductor Robin Ticciati to injury, the
production has much to say musically. Conductor Antonello Manacorda sets the
mood with an overture deftly caught between Gallic whimsy and the unexpectedly
sober beauty that anticipates the opera’s exquisite nocturne. There’s tension
here more convincing than anything on stage, a serious conflict of ideals that
catches the spirit of Shakespeare’s sparring lovers — ‘too wise to woo peaceably’
— more vividly than the histrionic slapstick Pelly finds in the spoken
dialogue.
Even with the plot filed down to nothing, Berlioz
still relies on dialogue to propel the action. Arias and ensembles contemplate,
emote and bemoan but they do not narrate, leading to a jerky pace that finds
its rhythm only in the long, set-piece numbers — Héro’s ‘Je vais le voir’,
Béatrice’s ‘Dieu! Que viens-je d’entendre?’. A largely Francophone cast make
the most of this dual pace. Mezzo Stéphanie d’Oustrac (Béatrice) spars
ferociously with Paul Appleby’s Bénédict in both words and music, her fuller
tone lent a sharper edge by this high-lying role. What softness Pelly’s
directness denies her, d’Oustrac strives to find in the music, though it’s
perhaps not quite enough to offset the rather brittle drama.
Although slightly strained at the top of the
voice, Appleby gives a personable account of Berlioz’s rather under-drawn hero,
and Lionel Lhote gives his all to the Hoffnung-esque parody of a conductor that
is Somarone. The women enjoy much more of the composer’s musical attention and
Serbian mezzo Katarina Bradic makes a tremendous impression as serving-woman
Ursule, setting the pace for the trio with her thick-spread tone and smoothly
spun vibrato. Stepping in to replace Hélène Guilmette, Sophie Karthäuser is a
charming Héro, if vocally still a work-in-progress. Audibly tiring towards the
end of ‘Je vais le voir’, she keeps just enough in reserve for Act 2, though
her top notes often lose their sheen under duress. Gamely willing through even
Pelly’s oddest demands, the Glyndebourne Chorus knit it all together with
musical skill and good humour.
In a year
that gave us both Cunk on Shakespeare and Upstart Crow, if Pelly’sBéatrice et Bénédict isn’t the best anniversary Shakespeare
tribute then it’s not the worst either. This is Shakespeare with a strong
French accent: long on beauty and short on the grit and grunts of real love.
Berlioz’s lovesick Benedick may live in his beloved’s heart and be buried in
her eyes, but Shakespeare’s also wants to ‘die’ in her lap — an unfortunate
stain on an elegant romance that neither Pelly nor Berlioz are willing to
countenance.
Alexandra
Coghlan is
a music journalist, critic and author of a forthcoming book on the history of
carols, Carols From King’s.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/are-glyndebourne-taking-le-piss-beatrice-et-benedict-reviewed/
