Luigi Rossi’s The Enchanted Palace opera review – a slightly different Royal drama
Panning through the current Covid Klondike of online opera offerings brings prospectors the occasional nugget. Among – it must be said – an overabundance of well-intentioned spoil. No more tenors in front of the Zoom shaving mirror, please. Mute!
The Enchanted Palace by Luigi Rossi, produced by Opéra de Dijon, is no run of the mill nugget. It is not even just a flashing musical meteor, opportunely picked up from some remote community hall performance in Winchcombe. It is a whacking great, golden asteroid of an opera, whooshing in from the distant, dark, forgotten Baroque Belt, way beyond the orbits of the familiar repertoire. It did not land by chance with Opéra de Dijon, specialists in panning for rare objects since their eight-classic-columned Grand Théâtre opera house was built in 1827.
It was steered to its impact point in the Côte d’Or by intrepid Captain/Conductor Leonardo García Alarćon, helmsman of orchestra Cappella Mediterranea since 2005 and the Millennium Orchestra since 2015. His life mission has been to boldly go where few conductors have gone before, explore strange new operas from bygone ages, seek out lost composers and steer them towards the light of public recognition today.
No apology for overextended space exploration metaphors. After all, this has been an outer-spacey-sort-of week. On Mars, Perseverance has delivered 4k quality images of a landscape that must make accidental viewers wonder why NASA took all that trouble to land an expensive Jeep on Bognor Beach.
One purpose of the Perseverance mission is to prepare samples of ancient Martian rock for eventual return to earth. That would be courtesy of a mission boosted by Elon Musk’s giant Starship 10 Rocket, the 10th iteration of which at last successfully landed – then unfortunately exploded. Like its predecessors. So far, the mission to bring back a few grammes of dirt from the God of War has cost $2.2bn.
Last week space struck back and now we have uncovered the evidence with nothing more startling than a toothpick and a pair of tweezers. In a delicious ironic twist, a 300 gramme piece of even older carbonaceous chondrite, a 4.6-billion-year-old brick from the solar system’s original Lego set, dumped itself, free gratis, on a driveway in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. No fist pumping mission controllers necessary. Covid vaccines, COG genome decoding – and now random meteors favouring suburban England. Are we Brits enjoying a run of post Brexit luck, or what?
Back to earth. Dijon and Leonardo García Alarcón boast a track record of discovering chondrite operas, including many of Cavalli’s works, notably Elena and Erismena revived at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2013. And Eliogabalo, with which he opened the 2016 Paris Opéra season, and Il Giasone in Geneva.
The Dijon link was forged when M. Alarcón conducted Antonio Draghi’s El Prometeo there in 2018, returning the following year for Francesco Sacrati’s La finta pazza. Other projects have included Sasha Waltz’s production of Rossi’s second opera, Orfeo,at the Berlin State Opera in 2018 and Les Indes galantes at the Paris Opéra in 2019, marking the 350th anniversary of the Académie Royale de Musique.
Luigi Rossi’s first opera – The Enchanted Palace (1642) – demands a humungous cast –twenty two soloists, double and triple choirs for 6 and 12 voices. It features numerous ballets and needs an orchestra of 40 to deliver his complex harmonies and dynamics.
In contrast to Venetian opera, which was salon-like, Roman productions splurged on cast, complex plots, lavish sets and huge soundscapes. Rossi marked the last surge of Roman opera before the Eternal City forsook it for a long time, due mostly to the instability of sponsorship caused by the alternating political ascendancy of France or Spain.
Get this! The libretto was written by a pope. Clement IX, aka librettist Rospigliosi, provided a drama per musica in three acts, comprising 2,725 verses, rooted in secular subjects, a rarity for 17th century Roman opera. This is a work of epic proportions.
Changing career paths is clearly not the modish 21st century innovation we flatter ourselves it to be. In the 17th century librettists might aspire to be popes – can’t say that today. On reflection, we have gone backwards. Imagine for a moment the prospect now of a Pope Lloyd Weber I. Hardly, worse luck! Mourn for our regression.
Nor is our generation the woke inventor of the current, vaunted gender fluidity fad. The Enchanted Palace calls for no fewer than six self-identifying male trebles. In the 17th century, they “took the knife” to follow their stars and, more than just hitting the high notes, often adopted the dress code and lifestyle gender change now flaunts. None of this was deemed unusual.
Today, countertenors just gulp, sing up an octave and make the best of it. Wimps! It is a 21st century paradox that a 17th century practice, universally condemned as barbaric, now has volunteers queuing round the block on NHS waiting lists, demanding elective surgery. O tempora, o mores.
For the Argentine conductor Leonardo García Alarcón, who rediscovered the opera in the Vatican Library neglected for 380 years, The Enchanted Palace is “the missing link in the history of opera and the metaphor of our lives”. His bringing it back to life is a towering achievement. Compressing the work from its original seven hours to a mere three and a half is a blessing.
What a “link” this turns out to be. The music is spellbinding, in its depth, complexity and melodic line. Rossi, insofar as he is credited at all, is known for his opera Orfeo and cycles of chamber works and songs. It is difficult to find a well-known comparator to place him in context. Put it like this, by using fuller orchestration, Rossi is akin to Monteverdi on steroids.
What is the opera about? Well, it’s complicated. Those with an appetite for a three-hour thirty-minute marathon, can watch it here, free to air, on Operavision until 29th March.
First off, there is a PROLOG:
Painting, Poetry and Music compete, vaunting their merits. Painting is slow to finish the sets for the upcoming opera. Magic arrives, raising for them in the blink of an eye, an enchanted palace. He chooses the subject of the opera: Roger, imprisoned in the palace of Atlante, then delivered by the warrior lover Bradamante, an illustration of the theme: Loyalty and Valour. Fidelio. Appositely for these socially distanced times we are observing actors in a confined space looking out and yearning for freedom.
The setting is modern and vividly dynamic. The palace is a hotel of many rooms, enabling the ever-changing range of interacting characters to enter and depart, all the while filmed by two mobile “reality” cameras, the images appearing live as background on the upper stage. Fabrice Murcia, the Belgian film maker, directs. Hence the setting of the palace as a functioning film studio.
At first sight it may seem a dumbing-down cliché, to depart so far from what must have been a formal, Roman, 17th century traditional setting. Not so. The Tracey Emin-like set, including taped off scenes of crimes, chalked bodies on the floor and weighty conversations in public conveniences, augment the pace and assist in compartmentalising the different interacting characters. It doesn’t help that the magician, Atlante, appears in various forms throughout. All the characters are in love, or perhaps not, with each other and emote at the drop of a well-placed recitative.
On with an attempt at a synopsis of the show: ACT I
The magician Atlante, protector of Knight Roger, has devised a ploy to prevent the latter from meeting the cruel fate that awaits him if he marries his beloved Bradamante. Instead of offering the regal couple up to the Goddess Oprah to demean themselves on her chat-show altar, Atlante decides to hold Roger in a magical, Beverly Hills style labyrinthine motel. He also imprisons and dumbfounds all those who pass within its reach, as frustrated chat show hosts – sorry, magicians – are apt to do. Think Prospero.
Then, here comes the audience! Roland arrives in pursuit of his beautiful – but true or false? – Angelique. Atlante, now transformed into a giant, kidnaps her in front of his eyes. Bradamante and her trusty Marphise, a warrior happily impervious to love, followed by the knights Ferragus and Sacripant, in pursuit of and in love also with Angelique, are in turn drawn into the castle. The confessional interview couch is becoming crowded. Who are these people muscling in?
Roger, who shortly beforehand saved the real Angelique from the evil Orc, is in the midst of a heated discussion – of lovers? – with her about a mysterious magic ring once given to Roger by Bradamante, but actually belonging to Angelique. Bradamante snoops on the scene, suspects Roger is cheating on her, and gives him the cold shoulder. After Angélique’s departure, he fruitlessly tries to justify himself. The break-up seems to be final. Roger is in despair.
While the two of them wander incessantly in the palace-labyrinth, Mandricardo pitches up, in search of newcomers Doralice, and Gradasso, drawn there in their turn while Atlante attracts the young Olympia. They all wander seemingly endlessly. Atlante adopts various appearances to sow even greater confusion.
I had to rerun Act 1 twice to really get a grip of what was what and who was whom, but it was worth the effort. They all have something meaningful to say. Fortunately, the surtitles are well up to the task of keeping it comprehensible.
ACT II
Roger and Bradamante are wandering on their own, one in the grip of romantic despair, the other of jealousy and anger. When they finally find each other, they only flee apart again. Typical.
Meanwhile, Angelique is looking for a knight who can escort her to her father’s house. A fight is brewing between two of her unwanted suitors when another of her admirers appears: Roland, who in turn joins in the quarrel. Angelique tries to stop them and suggests the three of them accompany her.
This scene is given hilarious impact by being portrayed as a sort of Mexican standoff, with each of the Angelique molesters threatening each other with automatics. Roland, perhaps unfairly, sports two.
Roger, understandably knackered from wandering, falls asleep. Bradamante finds him like this. She is tempted to take advantage of the situation to attack and kill him. She changes her mind at first, but when her anger takes over, she gives in to her fury and raises her sword against him. Roger wakes up at this moment and begs her to finish her act, his life being worthless without her. Another argument erupts, about Roger’s constancy and loyalty. They run away from each other again. Roger, however, has survived to fight another Act.
ACT III
Roger and Bradamante make up after Angelique’s confession and try to leave the palace.
Atlante then plays his last card: transformed into Roger, he sows confusion between the two lovers. The real Roger challenges him to a duel in order to prove his identity. Atlante is defeated and appears in his true form. To Roger, he reveals who he is and why he has acted this way. He tries in vain to convince them to stay in the palace and begs for their mercy.
Atlante is losing his powers – phew! – and gives them the secret to destroy his enchantments: by extinguishing the fire that burns in an urn in the middle of the garden. He offers to accompany them in this task, while he reveals their future to them. They set out for the urn while the other occupants try to escape from this palace “which is not closed but keeps changing its appearance.” A bit like Boris’ lockdown rules for pubs.
In front of everyone, Atlante finally admits defeat at the hands of the principles of Loyalty and Valour. At the request of Roger and Bradamante, he makes the enchantments disappear, the palace dissolves and frees everyone. The cast and two choruses sing the praises of, you’ve guessed it, Loyalty and Valour.
Take my word for it. That was a tight precis of the action. Is the whole work overdone, over complex? On the face of it, it may also seem mindlessly trivial. Rather, it is absorbing – but demanding total attention. Every aria is a well-crafted morality tale. The complex relationships among the whirling dervish cast of characters all bring their dilemmas front stage. The work squarely confronts the prejudices of its time. A 17th century Roman audience would have gone home unsettled.
Of course, this is the very week to focus on self-absorbed confessionals. If Duchesses can freak out on chat shows over the colour of palace bedspreads and can’t recall if Archbishops married them once or twice, Knight Roger and Bradamante might seem to have greater cause to complain in Dijon about their entrapment by Atlante and his unrelenting Palace authorities. After all, they never volunteered to join Atlante’s “Firm” in the first place.
Opéra de Dijon, Maestro Alerćon, M. Murgia, Capella Mediterranea, the Chœurs de l’Opéra de Dijon and Chambre de Namur, the thirteen principal singers – who took on twenty-two roles and sang and acted their hearts out – the dancers and troupe of comedians, all deserve thanks for recovering this important work from the dust of the Vatican cellars. They remind us that trailblazing in the Baroque era was every bit as exciting in 1642 as we flatter ourselves it is today. Bravo tutti!
Watch The Enchanted Palace on OperaVision here.