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L'enfant et les sortilèges

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L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties (The Child and the Spells: A Lyric Fantasy in Two Parts) is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is the second Ravel opera, the first being L'heure espagnole. Written from 1917 to 1925, the opera was first performed in Monte Carlo in 1925 under the baton of Victor de Sabata.

After being offered the opportunity to write a musical work, Colette wrote the text in eight days. Several composers were proposed to Colette to write the music, but she only was enthused with the prospect of Ravel.

Composition history

During World War I, the Opéra de Paris director Jacques Rouché asked Colette to provide the text for a fairy ballet. Colette originally wrote the story under the title Divertissements pour ma fille. After Colette chose Ravel to set the text to music, a copy was sent to him during the time he was serving in the war in 1916; however, the mailed script was lost. In 1917, Ravel finally had received a copy and agreed to complete the score, humorously replying to Collette, "I would like to compose this, but I have no daughter." Due to contractual obligations, Ravel finally was compelled to complete the work by 1924. Colette, believing that the work would never be complete, later expressed her extreme pleasure that the work was done, believing that her modest writing had been raised beyond its initial scope. Now officially under the title of L'enfant et les sortilèges, the first performance took place March 21, 1925 in Monte Carlo as conducted by Victor de Sabata with ballet sequences choreographed by George Balanchine. Ravel said of the premiere production:

"Our work requires an extraordinary production: the roles are numerous, and the phantasmagoria is constant. Following the principles of American operetta, dancing is continually and intimately intermingled with the action. Now the Monte Carlo Opera possesses a wonderful troupe of Russian dancers, marvelously directed by a prodigious ballet master, M. Balanchine. ... And let’s not forget an essential element, the orchestra.",[1]

Performance history

Marie-Thérèse Gauley sang the part of the child at both the premiere in Monte-Carlo and the first performance at the Opéra-Comique on 1 February 1926. The original cast also included Henri Fabert as Veillard Arithmétique, Warnerey as the clock and cat,[2] while at the Opera-Comique, conducted by Albert Wolff and with choreography by Louise Virard, the cast included Germaine Féraldy, Mathilde Calvet, Madeleine Sibille, Roger Bourdin, René Hérent and Louis Guenot.[3]

The opera was then seen in Prague (17 February 1927), Leipzig (6 May 1927) and Vienna (14 March 1929). The US premiere was given on 19 September 1930 by the San Francisco Opera.[4][5] The Canadian premiere of the work was a film version made by CBC Television in 1950 with conductor Wilfrid Pelletier.[6] It was not until 3 December 1958 that the opera was given its UK premiere in the Town Hall in Oxford. [4]

Roles

The score specifies that fire / the princess / nightingale must be sung by the same singer, and the little old man and frog by the same singer. It is also specified that the following groups or pairs of roles can be sung by the same singer: mother / china cup / dragonfly; the bergère / owl; the female cat / the squirrel; the male cat / grandfather clock; the armchair / tree.

Role Voice type[7] Premiere cast[8], 21 March 1925
(Conductor: Victor de Sabata)
L'enfant, the child mezzo-soprano Marie-Thérèse Gauley
Part one
Maman, the mother represented by a huge skirt contralto Orsoni
Le fauteuil bass Julien Lafont
La bergère Louis XV soprano Narsay
L'horloge comtoise, a clock broken by the child baritone Warnery
Le théière, Wedgwood teapot tenor Gaston Dubois
La tasse chinoise, a broken china cup mezzo-contralto Lucy
Le feu, the fire in the fireplace light soprano Mathilde
La princesse, the princess torn out of a storybook light soprano Bilhon
Une pastourelle soprano Chorina
Un pâtre contralto
Le petit vieillard, the small old man representing the torn math book tenor[9] Henri Fabert
Le chat baritone Chorina
La chatte mezzo-soprano Dubois-Lauger
Part two
La chouette soprano
L'arbre, a tree bass Baidaroff
La libellule, a dragonfly mezzo-soprano Viardot
Le rossignol, a nightingale light soprano Foliguet
La chauve-souris, widower bat soprano Lacroix
L'écureuil, a squirrel mezzo-soprano Lecourt
La rainette, the tree frog tenor Sollières
Chorus: Le banc, le canapé, le pouf, la chaise de paille (children's chorus); Pâtres and pastoures (shepherds and shepherdesses - torn figures from the decorative wallpaper), Les chiffres (spiteful little numbers that assist the old man in tormenting the child (children's chorus)); trees, animals.

Synopsis

Part 1

Set in an old-fashioned Normandy country home, the opera tells the story of a rude child who is reprimanded by the objects in his room which he has been destroying. After being scolded by his mother in the beginning of the opera, the child throws a tantrum destroying the room around him. He is then surprised to find that the unhappy objects in his room come to life. The furniture and decorations begin to talk; even his homework takes shape as it becomes an old man and a chorus of numbers.

Part 2

The bedroom becomes a garden filled with singing animals and plants which have been tortured by the child as well. The child attempts to make friends with the animals and plants, but they shun him because of the damage he did to them earlier when they were inanimate. They leave him aside, and in his loneliness, he eventually cries out "Maman". At this, the animals turn on him and attack him, but the animals wind up jostling among each other as the child is tossed aside. At the culmination, a squirrel is hurt, which causes the other animals to stop fighting. The child bandages the squirrel, then collapses exhausted. The animals have a change of heart toward the child, and decide to try to help him home. They carry the child back to his house, and sing in praise of the child. The opera ends with the child singing "Maman", as he greets his mother, in the very last measure of the score.

Numbers

Music

Instrumentation

Woodwind: 2 flutes, piccolo (alternating third flute), slide-whistle (flute a coulisse), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 1 E-flat clarinet, 1 bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, double bassoon
Brass: 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba
Percussion: timpani, xylophone, bass drum, triangle (instrument), whip (instrument), cymbals, tam-tam, ratchet (instrument), cheese grater, wood block, wind machine, crotales, snare drum
Other: celesta, piano (or luthéal), harp, strings

Structure

The opera calls for a large orchestra, a mixed chorus of adults, a chorus of children and eight soloists most of whom play a number of characters. The scale of the cast and fantastic setting make the opera often difficult to stage, which helps to explain why the work is not performed often. Ravel uses various subtle leitmotifs throughout the work. The melodies were emphasized with the orchestra being considered secondary by Ravel, who said this was modelled after Gershwin and American operettas of the time. Still, the composition doesn't avoid virtuosity in the instrumental writing. Ravel contrasted the work to his previous opera, L’heure espagnole:

"More than ever, I am for melody. Yes, melody, bel canto, vocalises, vocal virtuosity – this is for me a point of departure. If, in L’heure espagnole the theatrical action itself demanded that the music be only the commentary on each word and gesture, here, on the contrary, this lyric fantasy calls for melody, nothing but melody.... The score of L'enfant et les sortilèges is a very smooth blending of all styles from all epochs, from Bach up to ... Ravel" [10]

The opera was initially well received in Monte Carlo, but in a Paris showing the following year it was less successful. André Messager criticized the purposely imitative nature of the music, but Francis Poulenc and Les Six were impressed. His cat screech duet Duo miaulé is often seen as a parody of Wagner which was quite controversial, although Arthur Honegger praised this piece in particular. The use of pentatonic music and parallel fourths in the depiction of the Chinese tea cup is an example of use of "orientalism" in orchestral music.[11]

Recordings

Year Cast Conductor,
Opera House and Orchestra 		Label
1947 Nadine Sautereau,
Denise Scharley,
Solange Michel,
Odette Turba-Rabier,
Martha Angelici,
Claudine Verneuil,
Joseph Peyron,
André Vessières,
Yvon le Marc'Hadour 		Ernest Bour,
French National Radio Orchestra and Radio France Chorus 		Audio CD: Testament,
Cat: SBT1044
1954 Flore Wend,
Marie-Luise de Montmollin,
Geneviève Touraine,
Adrienne Migliette,
Suzanne Danco,
Juliette Bise,
Gisèle Bobillier,
Hugues Cuénod,
Pierre Mollet,
Lucien Lovano 		Ernest Ansermet,
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Motet Choir of Geneva 		Audio CD: Decca,
Cat: 433400
1960 Françoise Ogéas,
Jeannine Collard,
Jane Berbié,
Sylvaine Gilma,
Colette Herzog,
Heinz Rehfuss,
Camille Maurane,
Michel Sénéchal 		Lorin Maazel,
French National Radio Orchestra and 		Audio CD: DG,
Cat: 423718, 449769, 474890
1981 Susan Davenny Wyner,
Jocelyne Taillon,
Arleen Auger,
Jane Berbié,
Linda Finnie,
Linda Richardson,
Philip Langridge,
Philippe Huttenlocher,
Jules Bastin 		André Previn,
London Symphony Orchestra and Ambrosian Singers 		Audio CD: EMI,
Cat: EMX2241
1992 Colette Alliot-Lugaz,
Claudine Carlson,
Catherine Dubosc,
Marie-Françoise Lefort,
Georges Gautier,
Didier Henry,
Lionel Sarrazin 		Charles Dutoit,
Montreal Symphony Orchestra 		Audio CD: Decca,
Cat: 440333
1992 Martine Mahé,
Arlette Chedel,
Elisabeth Vidal,
Michèle Lagrange,
Léonardo Pezzino,
Vincent le Texier,
Marc Barrard 		Alain Lombard,
Bordeaux-Aquitaine National Orchestra and Bordeaux Theatre Chorus 		Audio CD: Auvidis,Cat: V4670
1997 Pamela Helen Stephen,
Anne-Marie Owens,
Elizabeth Futral,
Juanita Lascarro,
Mary Plazas,
Rinat Shaham,
Mark Tucker,
David Wilson-Johnson,
Robert Lloyd 		André Previn,
London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus and New London Children's Choir 		Audio CD: DG,
457589
2008 Annick Massis,
François Le Roux,
Jean-Paul Fouchécourt,
José Van Dam,
Magdalena Kožená,
Mojca Erdmann,
Nathalie Stutzmann,
Sophie Koch 		Simon Rattle,
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 		EMI Music

Notes

  1. ^ Orenstein, Arbie, A Ravel Reader: Correspondence, Articles, Interviews, 2003, p. 437
  2. ^ " L’Enfant et les sortilèges et L’Heure espagnole ", L’Avant-Scène Opera, January 1990.
  3. ^ Wolff S. Un demi-siècle d'Opéra-Comique (1900-1950). André Bonne, Paris, 1953.
  4. ^ a b Holden, p. 734
  5. ^ Opening Night production personnel on San Francisco Opera archive
  6. ^ Wilfrid Pelletier at thecanadianencyclopedia.com
  7. ^ Full score of L'enfant et les sortilèges. Durand et Cie, Paris, 1925.
  8. ^ "L’Enfant et les sortilèges et L’Heure espagnole", L’Avant-Scène Opera, January 1990.
  9. ^ In fact designated as 'trial' after the singer Antoine Trial.
  10. ^ Orenstein, p. 436
  11. ^ Scott, Derek B. (1998). "Orientalism and Musical Style". The Musical Quarterly,. 82 (2): 309–335. doi:10.1093/mq/82.2.309. Retrieved 2007-08-04.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

References

  • Holden, Amanda (Ed.), The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001. ISBN 0-140-29312-4


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