All I want in this world is to watch baroque operas. And to have a non-evil government. Well, I can achieve one of these goals.
There's a prologue, as there often is. Hébé is the goddess of youth, and she just wants to chillax with her followers. Unfortunately, then the goddess of war, Bellona, shows up (a baritone en travesti--I'm surprised to find that such things existed in earnest) and tries to recruit them for The Wars. She's naturally upset about this, and calls on Cupid to stop him. Cupid tries to do this, but ultimately concludes that Europe is excessively war-like and that he'd be better off in foreign climes, and cach of the four acts that follow is a love story set in a different exotic (by European standards, obviously) locale. "Le Turc généreux" concerns a pasha (or something) who's in love with his slave but ultimately lets her marry her own lover (was this an influence on Die Entführung aus dem Serail?). "Les incas du Pérou" is about an Incan princess in love with a Spanish conquistador; a jeaous Inca priest tries to stop them by making everyone think the gods made a volcano erupt out of anger, but the conquistador tells everyone that the priest caused the earthquake and he gets crushed by rocks. "Les fleurs" takes place in Persia; there are two sultans (or something) in love with each other's slaves, who ultimately turn out to love them back. It feels very proto-opera-buffa, what with the romantic difficulties and gender confusion, though as with all of these stories, there isn't much to it. Finally, we hae "Les sauvages," about a Native American warrior who's in love with a princess but who's worried that she may go for one of two bumbling European rivals. But it turns out that the one is too inconstant and the other is too jealous and she prefers the happy medium of her native lover. THE END.
It's all super-Orientalist, obviously, but mostly in pretty harmless ways (yes, blah blah, even if it's not harmful in itself it's all part of a cumulative narrative JESUS CHRIST just let me enjoy my opera). As is probably obvious from the description, the Incan segment is by far the most dubious in that regard. But if you're going to see that as a colonialist narrative, it surely has to be counterbalanced by the Native American one, which, yes, is very "noble savage," but it's not positing Europeans as being clearly superior and necessary to civilize the natives.
It's a lot of fun; Rameau's music remains great. There is A LOT of dance here, certainly more so than in Castor et Pollux; it's really extremely clear that this is not Italian. I mean, even beyond the fact that it's in French. There are times when you think, oh, the act's over now, got it, whoops, nope, more dancing. Doesn't quite accord with modern sensibilities, but you get into it and it's fine. This production is very elaborate and glittery; a real spectacle, which after all is what the opera is. Everyone's good, both singers and dancers, though the only one I recognized is Danielle de Niese as Hébé, beguiling as ever. You can sort of see why this stuff isn't really produced overseas (has the Met ever done Rameau? If this database is complete, The Enchanted Island is the closest they've gotten). The sensibility seems more foreign probably than any other opera I've seen, certainly more so than the Italian baroque. All the dancing...it's not that the Met couldn't summon the wherewithal if they wanted to, obviously, but, I mean, they don't even put on that many Handel operas, so it might take be a while before they get to Rameau or Lully. Meanwhile, a smaller opera house would have logistical problems pulling it off at all; this really does call for a pretty large-scale production. Anyway, it's great. And I now have a bunch of Rameau on DVD, so more soon.
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