Reviving grandeur of French Baroque
If the goal seems to be catching the attention of an easily distracted audience, that’s probably not far off. And in the case of “Temple,” the target was a particular spectator, Louis XV.
Decades before Richard Wagner was even a gleam in his pappy’s eye, the creative artists of the French Baroque had the whole “total art work” thing sewed up. Vocal and instrumental music, ballet, elaborate stagecraft and more — all of it put together was only barely enough to celebrate the bounty of the royal court at Versailles.
We have our modern-day equivalents, of course — gilded panorama has never gone out of fashion — but there’s an undeniable thrill to immersing oneself in the sort of sumptuous, grandiose artistic spectacle favored by members of the Bourbon monarchy. As for example, “The Temple of Glory,” a wonderfully overstuffed opera-ballet that opened a three-performance run Friday, April 28, at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall.
With music by Rameau and a libretto by Voltaire, this 1745 work represents a critical mass of Baroque creative talent. And the Berkeley presentation — a multipronged collaboration among Cal Performances, Phil-
harmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, and the Baroque Music Center of Versailles, with contributions from the New York Baroque Dance Company — did full justice to the sprawling nature of the material.
Like other examples of the French Baroque style, the esthetic world of “Temple” is a combination of expansive hyperactivity and fine-grained filigree. Arias and ariettas, choral interludes, dance episodes both large and small, and extravagant bursts of special effects (thunder, lightning, etc.) tumble all over one another in a seamless melange. The Aristotelian unities are nowhere to be found.
If the goal seems to be catching the attention of an easily distracted audience, that’s probably not far off. And in the case of “Temple,” the target was a particular spectator, Louis XV.
With the monarch’s favor very much in mind, Voltaire’s libretto outlines the do’s and don’ts of successful kingship. After a prologue that introduces the titular edifice — a triumphal hall of fame, situated on Mount Parnassus and attended by nine superbly differentiated Muses — the piece presents three diverse attempts to win everlasting glory.
The martial savagery of the warrior king Bélus and the debauchery of Bacchus both turn out to be nonstarters (although the high jinks of the latter certainly look like fun). Only the magnanimity of the Emperor Trajan guarantees the adulation of posterity.
Happily, this moralistic tale turns out to be little more than a framework on which to hang the endless inventiveness of Rameau’s score, rendered with nobility and verve by the orchestra under Music Director Nicholas McGegan, and the gorgeous dancing devised by director and choreographer Catherine Turocy.
The intertwining of the two strands — the ease with which the dramatic action flows from opera to dance and back again — may be the evening’s most distinctive aspect. Yet for all the blurring of the formal boundaries, each strain also stood proudly on its own.
Chief among the evening’s many choreographic delights was the endlessly agile and fluid presence of Caroline Copeland, who glided through every tableau as if moving on well-oiled casters. Her colleagues brought graceful ebullience to a range of theatrical moods, from the sublime round dances of the pastoral first act to the stately finale. The Bacchic celebrations of Act 2 were pure joy, enlivened by the presence of Meggi Sweeney Smith as a quizzical, highstepping ostrich.
The evening’s vocal contributions were more mixed, as not all the singers in a large and eclectic cast could quite manage the score’s demanding range. But Gabrielle Philiponet and Aaron Sheehan rendered the love duet in the final act in brilliant, crystalline colors, and Artavazd Sargsyan’s Bacchus was at once comic and richhued.
Throughout the evening, the emphasis on sumptuous display made itself felt, from the refulgent physical design (sets by Scott Blake, costumes by Marie Anne Chiment and lighting by Pierre Dupouey) to the lusty singing of Bruce Lamott’s Philharmonia Chorale to McGegan’s grand, sprightly conducting. This was billed as the modern premiere of a work that has lain dormant for centuries; encountering it on stage at last was like watching a resplendently bedecked giant stirring to life.