L'Amour Masqué
Festival Opera Series
First British staging of this Comédie Musicale
Music André Messager: L'Amour Masqué
Libretto Sacha Guitry
Principal Peformers Sophie Haudebourg (She); Jean Dalric (He); Sophie
Hervé (First Servant); Lydia Mayo (Second Servant); Francis Dudziak (The
Maharaja); Bernard Pisani (Baron Agnot); Franck Cassard (The Interpreter); Jean-Marc
Bertre (Maître d'hôtel); Opéra de Tours Chorus, Bernard Pisani
(Director); Northern Symphonia, Jean-Yves Ossonce (Conductor)
Designer Frédéric Pineau
Lighting Design Richard Créceveur
Date 1 September 2005
Venue Edinburgh Festival Theatre
Address 13/29 Nicolson Street
Reviewer Richard Cherns
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The Masked Ball
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Opéra de Tours' L'amour masqué opens with a 20-year old
girl, 'She', playing one lover off against the other, while in love with neither;
but falling for a photograph of a young man who embodies her heart's longing.
The photo, however, is 20 years old, and she mistakes the now much older, 'he'
for the father of the one in the photograph. 'He' takes advantage of the situation,
and poses as his younger self as 'She' spurns her current lovers in his favour.
A regulation subterfuge of masked ball and mistaken identities ensues. But if
you think this is a classic re-run of a dull and impossible opera plot, think
again. This is deliberately imitative with a resolution that was as modern as
it was appropriate for the two leads, and this pacey and clever production keeps
your interest for 2hrs and 20 mins. that passes surprisingly swiftly.
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She and He
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If you have ever wondered what's happening behind the Marx Brothers in a Night
at the Opera, and been curious to know what happened to that era of musical
writing, there will be something familiar to you here, albeit with a French
accent. As a young man, the composer Messager - succeeding Fauré - worked
as organist of St Sulpice by day. At night he conducted and directed music at
the Folies Bergères, and it seems the latter passion never left him.
Later in his life, in the early 1920s, as a heavyweight conductor of considerable
reputation, he combined forces with Sacha Guitry, sometimes referred to as the
French Noel Coward - while noting that Guitry was commitedly heterosexual -
to produce this extraordinary piece.
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Caroline Mutet as She
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The music owes as much to revue and burlesque at it does to light operetta.
Messager has a wonderful facility with rhythm, pacing and emotion. The music's
superb elasticity follows each turn of Guitry's wit like a well-honed Vaudeville
act. This flexibility was perfect, not only for the small ensemble that shoehorned
into Guitry's theatre, where the intimacy of the cabaret stage allowed for the
smallest subtlety, but also for the star quality of Yvonne Printemps playing
'She'. The second of Guitry's wives, she had starred at the Folies since the
age of 12, and was celebrated for her capacity to move seamlessly from text
to song to sung conversation, and the music was designed to give the greatest
freedom; in fact it was more or less written around her. Guitry himself played
'he', and is the only part that speaks throughout, since he had no singing voice.
So it is disappointing, in a festival where burlesque has achieved some prominence,
that the form is underused here. The musical interpretation is a little formal,
and doesn't run the gamut of expression, and the singing of some pieces is a
touch restrained. The production defaults back to light operetta, and misses
the freedom and spontaneity that would give the earthiness and sparkle. The
size of the auditorium doesn't help; it is clear from the set design that the
director is fully aware that we have to be drawn inwards to an intimate space.
The positioning of the surtitles does not favour the stalls either, since you
have to look up and away from the action.
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L'Amour Masqué
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This apart, it is a sumptuous production. The Northern Sinfonia, under Jean-Yves
Ossonce, is light in touch, balanced and sensitive, and delights in romantic
period vibrato, the costumes are wonderfully conceived, treading the line between
contemporary fashion and burlesque, Frédéric Pineau's set is simple
and beautiful, yetgives a sense of extravagance, enriched by Richard Créceveur's
lighting. The direction by Bernard Pisani (who also plays the Baron, one of
the hapless lovers) is wonderfully energetic and resourceful, and refuses to
be static even during the overture where we are treated to silent movie credits;
and it is with the arch choreography that animates the singing throughout that
the production ultimately scores. The cast is a mixture of singers and dancers,
but they all move to a continually inventive self-parodying stylisation that
owes more to Wilson Kepple and Betty doing a sand dance than to Swan Lake. And
somehow that helps the whole production to breathe.
Individual performances are exceptional, in particular Sophie Haudebourg as
'She' has an almost virtuosic emotional fluidity, and in the song Le rêve,
when she tells how she dances naked in front of the photograph of the man of
her dreams, we see a rare moment of truth and heart-rending vulnerability.
This is an exciting evocation of cutting-edge Parisian entertainment of the
1920's, go see.
Run 1-3 September 2005
© Richard Cherns. 02.09 2005. Published on www.Edinburghguide.com
