Staging Marie-Antoinette鈥檚 favorite aria
The last time the strains of the aria 鈥淥h Richard! Oh my king,鈥 echoed around the Opera Royal at Versailles it was for Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette just before they were dragged off to Paris and their doom by their revolting subjects.
The piece from 鈥淩ichard the Lionheart鈥 by Andre Gretry, one of the tragic queen鈥檚 favorite composers, was last performed by the Palace of Versailles鈥 own opera company in 1789, as the ancient regime crumbled.
It recently returned to the gilded chocolate-box opera, commissioned by the Sun King Louis XIV, after a 230-year break.
The lavishly decorated theater was used less than 20 times 鈥 most famously for the festivities that followed Marie-Antoinette鈥檚 marriage when she was just 14 鈥 before she and her husband lost their heads in the French Revolution.
And it was the singing of the aria by the king鈥檚 bodyguards when the royal couple appeared at a banquet at the opera on October 1, 1789 that lead to their downfall, Versailles鈥 theater and events director Laurent Brunner said.
A defiant display of royalist sentiment three months after the fall of Bastille incensed the hungry people of Paris, whose women marched out a few days later to take the royals back to the capital.
Scandalous 鈥榦rgy鈥
鈥淚t caused a scandal in revolutionary Paris,鈥 said Brunner, with radical leaders like Marat and Danton branding the banquet 鈥渃ounter-revolutionary.鈥
Rumors circulated 鈥渢hat the revolutionary tricolor rosette has been trampled underfoot鈥 by the royalist revellers, he added. The fake news was further fuelled by revolutionary tracts portraying the banquet as an orgy and claims that the rosette had been turned over to show only the white side, the symbol of the king.
鈥淭hree days after (the news broke), the women of Paris marched on Versailles and the day after the palace was empty,鈥 Brunner said.
By then the three-minute song about Richard the Lionheart, the English king, who had also been taken hostage while he was returning from the Crusades, had become a royalist anthem.
It was quickly banned by the revolutionary government. Even before the monarchy fell, the comic opera had never been fully performed on the Versailles stage 鈥 which was formally inaugurated on Marie-Antoinette鈥檚 wedding day as a gift to the opera-loving teenager.
She later built her own little theater, the Trianon, in the grounds of the palace where she would put on amateur dramatics starring herself and her friends, and stage concerts by her favorite composers like Gretry and Gluck.
Having hardly hosted another opera from the revolution right up until its restoration in 2009, the theater is something of an 18th-century time capsule, with machinery to match. Its design may have been revolutionary in its time 鈥 allowing for the stalls to be removed for balls and banquets 鈥 but today it takes brawn as well as brains to operate.
Six levels above the stage, Carlos Casado hauls the backdrops up and down by hand, one of the last machinists in France to do so.
鈥淚t is quite tough physically,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t is like working at theater鈥檚 very beginnings. 鈥淭he movements need to be very quick, and a lot depends on 鈥榝eeling鈥 so it all goes with the music.鈥
Even though 鈥淩ichard the Lionheart鈥 is a story from the Middle Ages, American director Marshall Pynkoski has set the new production in Versailles鈥 18th-century heyday.
鈥淭here is a real emotion about working here at Versailles,鈥 said Camille Assaf, the wardrobe mistress. 鈥淭he atmosphere gets deeply into you.鈥
She reproduced costumes 鈥渂y looking at an awful lot at paintings by Watteau, Fragonard and Boucher鈥 to catch 鈥渢he very particular grace鈥 of the period.
The next production at the Opera Royal will be another nod to the palace鈥檚 rich history 鈥 鈥淭he Ghosts of Versailles,鈥 which was created by the New York Metropolitan Opera nearly 40 years ago.
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