Charpentier’s La Couronne de Fleurs and La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers by the Boston Early Music Society, by Charles Warren
Marc-Antoine Charpentier Double Bill
La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers
La Couronne de fleurs
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 8pm
Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 3pm
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, Boston
Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors
Gilbert Blin, Stage Director
Anna Watkins, Costume Designer
Melinda Sullivan, Choreographer
Pre-concert talks an hour before the performances by John S. Powell, Professor of Music, The University of Tulsa.
BEMF Vocal Ensemble
Aaron Sheehan, Orphée
Mireille Asselin, Carrie Henneman Shaw, Michael Kelly,
Olivier Laquerre, Thea Lobo, Jason McStoots,
Megan Stapleton, Brenna Wells, Douglas Williams
BEMF Chamber Ensemble
Robert Mealy, concertmaster
Cynthia Roberts, violin
Laura Jeppesen, viola da gamba
Christel Thielmann, viola da gamba
Beiliang Zhu, viola da gamba
Gonzalo X. Ruiz, oboe & recorder
Kathryn Montoya, oboe & recorder
Avi Stein, harpsichord
Paul O’Dette, Baroque guitar and theorbo
Stephen Stubbs, Baroque guitar and theorbo
BEMF Dance Ensemble
Carlos Fittante, Olsi Gjeci, Caitlin Klinger, Alexis Silver
Boston Early Music Festival’s presentation of two Marc-Antoine Charpentier chamber operas took us from the playful, elegant, high baroque world of the court of Louis XIV, into something more serious and grave, and then back out again. First we were given most of La Couronne de Fleurs, a Pastoral probably not meant for full staging, where Flore, goddess of spring—well sung, and acted with spirit, by soprano Mireille Asselin—summons up the season and then proposes to shepherds and shepherdesses a contest to praise Louis XIV’s military triumphs, the winner to receive the crown of flowers of the title. After the conventional tributes are made, the production turns to the short opera La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, presenting it as a further entry in the poetic contest, though this is done a bit awkwardly, since the piece does not refer to Louis. The Orpheus opera seems not to have been finished by Charpentier, having only two acts instead of the usual three, and stopping with the beginning of Orpheus’s ascent from the Underworld with his lover Euridice rescued from death. We do not get the familiar incident of his prohibited looking back at her and thus permanent loss of her. BEMF cleverly handled this truncated ending by coming back to the last part of La Couronne, where the god Pan interrupts the poetic/musical contest, putting a stop to it, saying nothing can come up to Louis’s exploits.

