Review of the first modern performance of Boismortier's Les Voyages de l'Amour

It is always a great challenge for non-native speakers to recognize the intrinsic values of a French baroque or classicist opera. Without understanding of the delicate turns of the librettos or the synergy of musical and textual accents one cannot fully appreciate the most important ingredients of French musical theatre. That is why Lully’s oeuvre is doomed to failure abroad and the most successful stage works by French composers all betray the text-oriented, time-honored standards of Lully’s theatre. We foreigners will always suspect snobbery and hypocrisy and be doubtful about the enthusiasm of native speakers. Fortunately, a fistful of composers was determined to break away from the traditions and it is them, who established the strongest link between the French and the rest of Europe in music. The foremost representative of this purely music-oriented concept is obviously Rameau, but closely follows him Mondonville and Boismortier. In this respect Charpentier may seem much more a direct predecessor of them than Lully as Charpentier’s melodic invention, technical skill and training yielded more Italianate pieces. Charpentier’s and Rameau’s operas already achieved their places in the repertoire and owing to Hervé Niquet’s, Christophe Rousset’s and Marc Minkowski’s contributions more pieces were added to the puzzle from Mondonville’s and Boismortier’s ouvre in the previous decades. This segment has further been expanded by the fruitful collaboration between Benoît Dratwicki and György Vashegyi with the addition of Mondonville’s Isbé and the recent discovery of Boismortier’s Les Voyages de l'Amour.

Boismortier’s Les Voyages de l'Amour is a remarkable piece owing to several features. First among the contemporary revivals it fulfills most completely the concept of “the blend of tastes” (les goûts-réunis). In stage music, Boismortier was the most successful representative of those 18^th century French instrumental composers (e.g. Blavet, Buffardin, Corrette) who were eager to exploit the vogue for Italian music. In Les Voyages de l'Amour he tried to create a mixture, which could equally boast the best ingredients of French stage music and Italian opera. His solution is a most noteworthy example, since Boismortier reaches an almost homogenous stylistic blend without sacrificing the original national forms. That is why one can hear moving and tender French airs, Italian ariettes, intricately crafted ensembles, gay dances, program music and händelian choruses in the same work. Boismortier’s meticulous word-panting appears unsurpassable in his French airs. On the other hand, daring modulations, unusual harmonies and Neapolitan motifs characterize the Italianate movements. Listening to the Caprice of Elements (Simphonie pour l'arrivée des Genies Elementaires - Caprice) one cannot deny that this divertissement has it roots in such pieces as the Air des trembleurs (Lully’s Isis) the Tempête (Marais: Alcione), Vivaldi’s Le Quattro Stagioni or the fight against the dragon (Monstre affreux, monstre redoubtable) in Rameau’s Dardanus. Last but not least I must mention that the Italian ariettes are the best French examples of obbligato airs I have ever heard. Boismortier completely understood Italian music and he composed full-blown and mature pieces unlike his colleagues, whose awkwardly angular ariettes appear only pale imitations of their Italian counterparts. It is especially goes for the trumpet-air (performed superbly by Éléonore Pancrazi), which could have been written by Steffani, Scarlatti or even the young Händel. The latter composers and Couperin himself could have served as examples for Boismortier when he composed the magnificent duets which reminded me of the Leçons de ténèbres.

Well, the performance of the opera itself is a revolutionary step in the revival of baroque-classicist operas, but the excellent critical edition and the interpretation made it accessible not only to the aficionados of early music but also to everyday opera-goers. Under György Vashegyi’s baton both the Purcell choir and Orfeo orchestra (enforced by exceptional soloists) performed impeccably. Benoît Dratwicki judiciously elected and meticulously prepared a dream cast for the premiere. Further the team was not reluctant to act. Especially Chantal Santon-Jeffery, whose androgynous stage presence must have mesmerized the audience. Judith Van Wanroij again proved her acting capabilities reminding me of her fantastic performance of Phèdre, while Katherine Watson’s innocence was as authentic as if she had stepped out directly from a novel by Jane Austen. Their tender voices beautifully counterbalanced the lines of the ambiguous, “en travesti” L’Amour. Thomas Dolié was as astonishingly perfect as usual and Katia Velletaz and Éléonore Pancrazi also acted and sang flawlessly.