Bringing Ravel and Puccini to Life 04-14-2009 Original costume sketch by OCP Costume Director Richard St. Clair For those who may think of opera as an endurance game, the pairing of L’enfant et les sortilèges and Gianni Schicchi, two delightful one-act operas that each runs under an hour, challenges the myth. Both operas have light, comic stories, and deal with the simplest of human concepts—the consequences of our actions, learning compassion for others, all-consuming greed, and true love. No matter how simple the ideas or how short the pieces, however, producing two unique works in one evening is no small behind-the-scenes feat at an opera company. “You’re really producing two operas, any way you look at it,” says Opera Company of Philadelphia Artistic Director Robert B. Driver, director of this new production. “The shorter lengths of the pieces help, but you’re looking at two casts to stage; two different pieces for Music Director Corrado Rovaris to rehearse with very different styles; and you need to be able to make two operas work on the same stage from a technical standpoint. It requires creativity, which is a big part of the fun.” L’enfant et les sortilèges, by French composer Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), translates literally into “The Child and the Spells,” or “The Bewitched Child,” and is a fantastical look into the mind of a youngster. Ravel was well into a career that had produced works for piano, orchestra, ballet, and a single opera, L’heure espagnole, when Jacques Rouché, the newly appointed director of the Paris Opera, approached him about a new commission. Rouché had asked the famous French author Colette to write the text for a ballet that would be set to music by Ravel. Colette, who would later become perhaps most well-known in America as the author of Gigi, which was adapted by Lerner & Loewe into a Broadway show and a film, reportedly wrote much of the text in just eight days, and she sent the first draft to Ravel while he was serving in the First World War in 1916. Original costume sketch by OCP Costume Director Richard St. Clair and a demonstration of how the costume comes to life. What eventually evolved into the opera L’enfant would not be completed until 1924, and the influences of the early 1920s when American jazz and ragtime were being heard in the cafés of France are evident throughout the piece. Even as new musical styles were emerging around the globe, Ravel was shamelessly committed to melody, and the end result was a work which demanded a large orchestra, a cast of principals, many of whom would sing multiple roles, adult and children’s choruses, and dance which was choreographed by George Balanchine himself for the 1925 premiere in Monte Carlo. Ravel said during rehearsals, “Our work required an extraordinary production: the roles are numerous, and the phantasmagoria is constant. Following the principles of American operetta, dancing is continually and intimately intermingled with the action.” Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) shared Ravel’s esteem for classic melody, and had already produced La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly when he set to composing three one-act operas called Il trittico, which would premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918. Il trittico featured the drama Il tabarro, the tragedy Suor Angelica, and the comedy Gianni Schicchi. The comic Schicchi is without a doubt the most performed of the trio, with its story inspired by a passage of Dante’s Inferno and its characters steeped in greed and deception. Interestingly within this hilarious storyline about hypocrisy and Machiavellian drive, the most renowned musical moment is that of the famed aria, “O mio babbino caro,” a tender and sincere plea from Lauretta to her father Gianni Schicchi as she describes her love for Rinuccio. The aria is widely acclaimed with other Puccini stand-outs such as Turandot’s “Nessun dorma” and Madama Butterfly’s “Un bel dì” as one of the most recognizable works in the operatic canon. So why join these two works for a single evening of opera? “In the context of putting together a whole season,” Driver shares, “Corrado Rovaris and I wanted to produce something a little different. Here, you have two 20th Century pieces from the same period, one French with a satirical edge, and one Italian with a socially satirical side. They are so different stylistically, and yet they both have a contemporary flavor, so they’re well suited to a single evening.” To marry the two operas on one stage, Driver has worked with Italian designer Guia Buzzi and video designer Lorenzo Curone, both making their U.S. debuts. Their work, which has been seen at theatres throughout Europe, realizes Driver’s concept of setting both pieces in the early 1930s, with costumes designed by OCP Costume Director Richard St. Clair. “The looks of the two pieces are vastly different. For L’enfant, we went in a very colorful, fanciful direction,” says Driver. The opera, with its dream-like, surreal quality, calls for inanimate objects like chairs, clocks and teacups to come to life, singing and dancing while menacing their youthful tormentor. Even the animals, trees and insects in the garden speak to the child—and, in an ironic twist, cat lover Ravel has his operatic cats sing a torrid “meow” duet to the fascinated youth. OCP Costume Director Richard St.Clair shows off the costume for The Sidechair So how does one turn a mezzo-soprano into a singing, moving chair? “There are many ways to do it,” Driver smiles, “but in our production, from the moment I considered doing the opera, I very much wanted to get away from trying to have the singers be the physical object they represent, and instead wanted to have them act as the spirit of that object. Through projections, we provide the visual objects, and then through staging and choreography, we see the emergence of the spirit of that object. Richard St. Clair and I have worked closely on costumes, and we found ourselves having conversations like, ‘What would a clock look like if it were human? What would fire wear? Would she look more like a devil, or maybe a provocative chanteuse?’ It’s been very engaging to find the right mix of stagecraft to bring such a whimsical opera to life.” Original costume sketch by OCP Costume Director Richard St. Clair In contrast to the wash of color of L’enfant, the world of Gianni Schicchi is much more stark, focusing on black, white and gray—and a cast of vivid, colorful characters. “The opera is set against a backdrop of historic Florence, and features some very traditional characters, but that will be juxtaposed with some of the younger, more slick family members so that the production as a whole has a contemporary taste to it. Without a doubt, the evening employs a little of everything—dance, technology, classic and contemporary—and lots of laughter.” It is an interesting sidenote to consider the timeline of the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s spring 2009 offerings, and the vastly different musical styles represented by these 20th Century works. While Puccini was hard at work on Gianni Schicchi and then Turandot, Ravel was turning out L’enfant et les sortilèges, and Alban Berg was composing Wozzeck, which premiered in Berlin just one year after L’enfant. For a slightly later take on 20th Century opera, audiences will hear the Opera Company’s season finale, Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia in June at the Perelman Theater. Buy your tickets now! Click here for more information about L’enfant et les sortilèges and Gianni Schicchi and read more about the production. Read more about this perfect comic pairing! Click here to listen to the music.
Original costume sketch by OCP Costume Director Richard St. Clair
For those who may think of opera as an endurance game, the pairing of L’enfant et les sortilèges and Gianni Schicchi, two delightful one-act operas that each runs under an hour, challenges the myth. Both operas have light, comic stories, and deal with the simplest of human concepts—the consequences of our actions, learning compassion for others, all-consuming greed, and true love. No matter how simple the ideas or how short the pieces, however, producing two unique works in one evening is no small behind-the-scenes feat at an opera company.
“You’re really producing two operas, any way you look at it,” says Opera Company of Philadelphia Artistic Director Robert B. Driver, director of this new production. “The shorter lengths of the pieces help, but you’re looking at two casts to stage; two different pieces for Music Director Corrado Rovaris to rehearse with very different styles; and you need to be able to make two operas work on the same stage from a technical standpoint. It requires creativity, which is a big part of the fun.”
L’enfant et les sortilèges, by French composer Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), translates literally into “The Child and the Spells,” or “The Bewitched Child,” and is a fantastical look into the mind of a youngster. Ravel was well into a career that had produced works for piano, orchestra, ballet, and a single opera, L’heure espagnole, when Jacques Rouché, the newly appointed director of the Paris Opera, approached him about a new commission. Rouché had asked the famous French author Colette to write the text for a ballet that would be set to music by Ravel. Colette, who would later become perhaps most well-known in America as the author of Gigi, which was adapted by Lerner & Loewe into a Broadway show and a film, reportedly wrote much of the text in just eight days, and she sent the first draft to Ravel while he was serving in the First World War in 1916.
Original costume sketch by OCP Costume Director Richard St. Clair and a demonstration of how the costume comes to life.
What eventually evolved into the opera L’enfant would not be completed until 1924, and the influences of the early 1920s when American jazz and ragtime were being heard in the cafés of France are evident throughout the piece. Even as new musical styles were emerging around the globe, Ravel was shamelessly committed to melody, and the end result was a work which demanded a large orchestra, a cast of principals, many of whom would sing multiple roles, adult and children’s choruses, and dance which was choreographed by George Balanchine himself for the 1925 premiere in Monte Carlo. Ravel said during rehearsals, “Our work required an extraordinary production: the roles are numerous, and the phantasmagoria is constant. Following the principles of American operetta, dancing is continually and intimately intermingled with the action.”
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) shared Ravel’s esteem for classic melody, and had already produced La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly when he set to composing three one-act operas called Il trittico, which would premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918. Il trittico featured the drama Il tabarro, the tragedy Suor Angelica, and the comedy Gianni Schicchi. The comic Schicchi is without a doubt the most performed of the trio, with its story inspired by a passage of Dante’s Inferno and its characters steeped in greed and deception. Interestingly within this hilarious storyline about hypocrisy and Machiavellian drive, the most renowned musical moment is that of the famed aria, “O mio babbino caro,” a tender and sincere plea from Lauretta to her father Gianni Schicchi as she describes her love for Rinuccio. The aria is widely acclaimed with other Puccini stand-outs such as Turandot’s “Nessun dorma” and Madama Butterfly’s “Un bel dì” as one of the most recognizable works in the operatic canon.
So why join these two works for a single evening of opera?
“In the context of putting together a whole season,” Driver shares, “Corrado Rovaris and I wanted to produce something a little different. Here, you have two 20th Century pieces from the same period, one French with a satirical edge, and one Italian with a socially satirical side. They are so different stylistically, and yet they both have a contemporary flavor, so they’re well suited to a single evening.”
To marry the two operas on one stage, Driver has worked with Italian designer Guia Buzzi and video designer Lorenzo Curone, both making their U.S. debuts. Their work, which has been seen at theatres throughout Europe, realizes Driver’s concept of setting both pieces in the early 1930s, with costumes designed by OCP Costume Director Richard St. Clair.
“The looks of the two pieces are vastly different. For L’enfant, we went in a very colorful, fanciful direction,” says Driver. The opera, with its dream-like, surreal quality, calls for inanimate objects like chairs, clocks and teacups to come to life, singing and dancing while menacing their youthful tormentor. Even the animals, trees and insects in the garden speak to the child—and, in an ironic twist, cat lover Ravel has his operatic cats sing a torrid “meow” duet to the fascinated youth.
OCP Costume Director Richard St.Clair shows off the costume for The Sidechair
So how does one turn a mezzo-soprano into a singing, moving chair?
“There are many ways to do it,” Driver smiles, “but in our production, from the moment I considered doing the opera, I very much wanted to get away from trying to have the singers be the physical object they represent, and instead wanted to have them act as the spirit of that object. Through projections, we provide the visual objects, and then through staging and choreography, we see the emergence of the spirit of that object. Richard St. Clair and I have worked closely on costumes, and we found ourselves having conversations like, ‘What would a clock look like if it were human? What would fire wear? Would she look more like a devil, or maybe a provocative chanteuse?’ It’s been very engaging to find the right mix of stagecraft to bring such a whimsical opera to life.”
In contrast to the wash of color of L’enfant, the world of Gianni Schicchi is much more stark, focusing on black, white and gray—and a cast of vivid, colorful characters. “The opera is set against a backdrop of historic Florence, and features some very traditional characters, but that will be juxtaposed with some of the younger, more slick family members so that the production as a whole has a contemporary taste to it. Without a doubt, the evening employs a little of everything—dance, technology, classic and contemporary—and lots of laughter.”
It is an interesting sidenote to consider the timeline of the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s spring 2009 offerings, and the vastly different musical styles represented by these 20th Century works. While Puccini was hard at work on Gianni Schicchi and then Turandot, Ravel was turning out L’enfant et les sortilèges, and Alban Berg was composing Wozzeck, which premiered in Berlin just one year after L’enfant. For a slightly later take on 20th Century opera, audiences will hear the Opera Company’s season finale, Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia in June at the Perelman Theater.
Buy your tickets now!
Click here for more information about L’enfant et les sortilèges and Gianni Schicchi and read more about the production.
Read more about this perfect comic pairing!
Click here to listen to the music.
