Jean-Baptiste Lully, Atys (1676)

This was the favorite opera of the Sun King hisself, so you know it's good. It's based on mythology, as these things are. So: Atys is a guy. Sangaride is a princess, and her dad wants her to marry the queen of Phyrgia instead. But! She's secretly in love with Atys and he's secretly in love with her. Which is bad enough, but that's not all: the goddess Cybèle, who's just kind of hanging around, is also in love with Atys. So it's a bit tangled up, but, as happens in baroque operas, everything ends happily.

Actually, that's a lie; Cybèle uses magic to make Atys go insane so he murders Sangaride and then he regains his sanity and commits suicide and NOBODY IS HAPPY. Seriously. This is the first baroque opera I've seen that's unambiguously a tragedy. It's kind of shocking.

Ah, but is it GOOD? That is the question. The only other Lully opera I've seen is Cadmus et Hermione, and I was kind of lukewarm at best about that one, but I thought, eh, maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind, and Lully seems like a pivotal enough figure that he's worth revisiting.

But it turns out that I had a very similar reaction to this one. In the above-linked review, I claim that this basically sounds the same as Rameau to me; having heard a lot more Rameau since them, I can definitively say: no. That's not true. Rameau is a much more versatile and exciting composer. I'm sure if this were the eighteenth century, I could find someone willing to get in a fistfight with me over that opinion, but it is what it is. Not that Lully's music is anything but perfectly pleasant, but I feel it only occasionally rises above that.

That's not the only concern, though. Obviously, French baroque opera is less often performed than Italian, and that's pretty clearly because the approach to plotting that you see in the former is so alien to our own sensibilities. But there are definitely levels here: obviously, Rameau operas are not conventionally plotted by our standards, but they somehow manage to be dynamic in spite of that and feel basically accessible. That is...not really the case with Lully. The story and the way it's married to the music is so totally mannered and predictable that it feels positively embalmed, and it's pretty obvious to me why it's not super-popular today. It's difficult to avoid the feeling of, well. I guess this isn't bad per se, but it isa little...boring.

Then too, there's the fact that this Les Arts Florissants production is super-traditional. Everyone wearing those huge curly wigs that it's impossible to imagine how anyone ever found attractive. Extra stuffiness is not what this needs. I feel like--I know this would make a traditionalist's head explode--your best bet with Lully would be to make your production as wild and Eurotrashy as possible, to offset the dullness.

I say it's boring, but actually, the last act--where the tragedy happens--is kind of a shot in the arm. Things get briefly dramatic and exciting. Atys' last words, to Cybèle: "I am avenged enough: you love me, and I die." DAMN that's cold. Not undeservedly, however. Really, the opera should end there, but it doesn't. There's this REALLY strange bit that literally made me el oh el with its incongruity--as Cybèle is kneeling before Atys' body, abruptly a face-paced dance number starts up and random dudes dash on stage to dance to it. Way to break the mood.

Will I watch more Lully? *non-commital grunt* I don't know; maybe at some point, but I can't say the prospect makes my heart beat fast. Is it conceivable that an influential composer may not actually be that...good? Heaven forfend.

As a side note, I'd like to note that the wikipedia entry for Atys has either been vandalized or there are multiple versions of the opera, because there are parts of it that are flat-out WRONG, especially at the end: "Atys plans to commit suicide as a result of the tragic loss of his vision. . . To prevent his suicide, Cybèle intervenes in Scene 5 and transforms him into a tree." No. No, that doesn't happen. It just doesn't. After he's dead she talks about making him into a tree, but it doesn't remotely go like this. Also, "the tragic loss of his vision" (which doesn't actually happen) sounds like it's just someone goofing around. I DON'T KNOW.