Platée

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Platée (Plataea) is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 31 March 1745 at the Grande Ecurie, Versailles. The libretto is by Adrien-Joseph Le Valois d'Orville and concerns an ugly water nymph who believes that Jupiter, the king of the gods, is in love with her.[1] The work was initially called a ballet bouffon, though it was later styled a comédie lyrique, putting it in the same category as Rameau's Les Paladins. It was Rameau's first attempt at comic opera. The work is in three acts and a prologue. It was written for the celebrations of the wedding of Louis of Bourbon, Dauphin of France, the son of the reigning French Louis XV, to the Spanish princess Maria Theresa, who, according to contemporary sources, like the title character was no beauty. Instead of getting the composer into trouble, the entertainment at Versailles seems to have been well received, and Rameau was appointed a few month later to the position of Composer of the King's Chamber Music with a sizable annual pension.

Contents

[edit] Roles

  • Thespis (tenor)
  • Satyr (baritone)
  • Thalie (soprano)
  • Momus (baritone)
  • Amour (soprano)
  • Platée (tenor - a travesti role)
  • King Cithéron (baritone)
  • Jupiter (baritone)
  • Junon (mezzo-soprano)
  • Mercure (tenor)
  • La Folie (soprano)
  • Momus II (tenor)
  • Clarine (soprano)
  • Animals, scholars

[edit] The plot

The story shows the gods playing a practical joke on Platée, a frog princess of particular ugliness (played by the leading tenor), who is convinced that everything that comes near her pond is madly in love with her. To teach her a lesson, Jupiter himself pretends to be in love with Platée. The marriage is planned but comes to nothing, with Juno breaking up the wedding party and sending the humiliated Platée back into her swamp.

A show-stopping highlight includes the goddess La Folie (Madness) singing the story of Apollo and Daphne as a warning to Platée not to get involved with Jupiter.

[edit] Background to the opera

Comic opera was relatively rare during the Baroque era in France and the musicologist Cuthbert Girdlestone expresses his surprise that none of Rameau's contemporaries seem to have remarked on the innovative nature of Platée.[2] Rameau may have been inspired by a revival of an earlier comic opera, Les amours de Ragonde by Jean-Joseph Mouret, in 1742.[3]

Rameau bought the rights to the libretto Platée ou Junon Jalouse (Plataea, or Juno Jealous) by Jacques Autreau (1657-1745) and had d'Orville modify it.[4] The ultimate source of the story is a myth related by the Greek writer Pausanias in his Guide to Greece.

[edit] Performance history and reception

Platée was one of the most highly regarded of Rameau's operas during his lifetime. It even pleased critics who had expressed hostility to his musical style during the Querelle des Bouffons (an argument over the relative merits of French and Italian opera). Melchior Grimm called it a "sublime work" and even Rameau's bitter enemy Jean-Jacques Rousseau referred to it as "divine".[5] The reason for this praise may be because these critics saw Platée, a comic opera, paving the way for the lighter form of opera buffa they favoured.[6]

The work received one performance at the marriage festivities at Versailles in 1745. Little is known about the cast of this production, except that the title role was taken by the tenor Pierre Jélyotte, a famous character actor. Rameau revised the opera in collaboration with the librettist Ballot de Sovot and presented it at the Opéra in Paris on 4 February 1749. It was revived again in 1754 as part of the continuing Querelle des Bouffons, pitted against Leonardo Leo's Italian opera buffa I viaggiatori. It was last performed complete during Rameau's lifetime in 1759. The next production would not take place until 1901 in Munich, in a heavily adapted German version by Hans Schilling-Ziemssen. The French version reappeared at a production in Monte Carlo in 1917 but Platée only returned to France at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 1956. The opera made its debut in the United Kingdom in 1983 and in the United States in 1987.

Platée will be presented by the Santa Fe Opera in a production by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Marc Minkowski as part of the Summer 2007 Festival season. There is already a DVD available of a Pelly/Minkowski collaboration of the opera. It was presented as a co-production of New York City Opera and the Mark Morris Dance Group, directed by Mark Morris in the 2005-2006 season.

[edit] Recordings

  • Platée Orchestre de la Société du Conservatoire, cond: Hans Rosbaud (EMI, 1956)
  • Platée Les Musiciens du Louvre, cond: Marc Minkowski (2 CDs, Erato, 1989)
  • Platée Les Musiciens du Louvre, cond: Marc Minkowski, Opéra National de Paris production (DVD: Kultur, 2003 ISBN 0-7697-2919-3)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Viking p.838
  2. ^ Girdlestone p.336
  3. ^ Ivan A. Alexandre p.28
  4. ^ Girdlestone p.436
  5. ^ Girdlestone p.439
  6. ^ Girdlestone p.440

[edit] Sources

  • Alexandre, Ivan A., Notes from the CD recording of Platée conducted by Marc Minkowski
  • Girdlestone, Cuthbert,Jean-Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work, New York: Dover Publications, 1969 ISBN 0486214168
  • Holden, Amanda, et al (eds.), The Viking Opera Guide, London: Viking, 1993 ISBN 0670812927
  • Sadler, Graham, et al, The New Grove French Baroque Masters: Lully, Charpentier, Lalande, Couperin, Rameau, Scranton, PA: Norton & Co, 1986 ISBN 0393303527

[edit] Links

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