San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Symphony presents Ravel’s luminous tale in semi-staged event of the season
For most of the last century, since its 1925 premiere in Monte Carlo, Maurice Ravel’s “L’Enfant et les sortilèges” has been a bear of an opera to produce. Staging this one-act gem — about a naughty little boy who has been grounded by his mother — involved bringing the child’s imagination to life: Teacups and armchairs must dance, along with a squirrel, a dragonfly and trees that weep and sing.
To say the least, the opera — whose title translates as The Child and the Magic Spells — has posed challenges for set builders and costume designers. But when the San Francisco Symphony presents a semi-staged production of “L’Enfant” at Davies Symphony Hall (June 27, 29-30), state-of-the-art animation and projections will make real the child’s imaginings. The singers, as well as the Orchestra and Chorus, will inhabit a magical world.
“This piece by Ravel is a feast for an animator,” said Grégoire Pont, who originally created the animation for a 2016 production of “L’Enfant” at Opéra de Lyon. “I consider animation to be a living thing — not just a background or a set, but a real representation of what you have in your imagination. Ravel’s music is constantly changing and I want my animation to be a transcription — a visual translation — of all these images and all these floating feelings you have when you are listening to this music.”
Ravel’s score is exquisitely detailed.
“Every sound paints a magical picture to illustrate the story ... It’s “Fantasia” right before your eyes and ears,” said mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, who sings the leading role of The Child in the Symphony’s performances this month.
Directed by James Bonas, the French production now comes to Davies Symphony Hall, where the audience will peer into the moonlit world described in the libretto by Colette, the French author and actress who invited Ravel to set her story to music.
Set in a country house in Normandy, the opera takes off when The Child refuses to do his homework and throws a tantrum. He smashes crockery. He grabs a fireplace poker and gouges the wallpaper with its fairytale images of shepherds and shepherdesses.
His inner world flares alive: The numbers in his arithmetic lessons begin to madly dance around him; his favorite teapot sings, admonishing him. When the boy injures his pet squirrel, it escapes to the garden — and the child soon follows, at which point Pont’s animation blooms with a wild bouquet of colors.
Projected onto a giant gauze screen at the front of the stage, the animations create the illusion of three dimensions. The singers and instrumentalists appear to be immersed in the animated world, and sometimes merge with it. When one of the singers breaks into the coloratura “Fire” aria, everything is synchronized: her notes, her gestures and the dancing animated flames that surround her.
It’s a long way from the opera’s 1925 debut at the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo, with choreography by the then-21-year-old George Balanchine. “L’Enfant” had its United States premiere in 1930 at the San Francisco Opera, which in those early days, essentially shared its orchestra with the San Francisco Symphony.
With Seiji Ozawa conducting at War Memorial Opera House, the Symphony again performed “L’Enfant” in 1974. In 1999, Michael Tilson Thomas led the Orchestra in four performances at Davies Symphony Hall with a superb cast — including mezzosopranos Stephanie Blythe, Joyce DiDonato and Frederica von Stade as The Child.
When Pont learned that the Lyon production was coming to San Francisco, he said, “I was crazy with excitement . ... All my life, I have loved music so much. And now whenever I come on stage and stand with the band after a performance, I feel that I am a part of this wonderful world.”