The planets aligned for Opera Lafayette’s ground-breaking production of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les surprises de l’Amour Friday night. Artistic director Patrick Dupre Quigley opened his second season at the helm with the modern world premiere of the original 1748 version of this opéra-ballet. In good news for this ingenious composer’s fans, Opera Lafayette will present several more Rameau works through 2033, the 350th anniversary of his birth.

Not only did the rediscovered score turn out to be a musical delight, but the company’s first complete staging in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Elizabethan Theatre proved equally charming. Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to 1751, presented this sycophantic work in a specially designed private theater in the Petits Appartements at Versailles, making the Folger a venue of ideal scope. Hopefully, this long-overdue partnership of presenter and venue will continue in future seasons.

The official occasion for Les surprises de l’Amour was to celebrate the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ending the war of Austrian Succession between England and France in 1748. In the libretto by Pierre-Joseph Bernard, love triumphs over war, as Urania and Adonis, both resistant to love’s charms, yield to Cupid’s demands. As in François Boucher’s celebrated paintings, Madame de Pompadour herself portrayed Venus, goddess of love and beauty.

Soprano Elizabeth Sutphen performed first as Madame de Pompadour in the Prelude, a supernumerary role that featured her seated next to William Townsend’s (non-speaking) Louis XV and directing the other performers. Her turns as Uranie in the first entrée (“La lyre enchantée”) and as Vénus in the second (“Adonis”) both highlighted her agile, silvery voice. The ornate runs and shimmering high notes of the latter character’s showpiece, “Vole. Amour,” made a thrilling conclusion.

Emilie Kealani’s more dramatic soprano proved the most beautiful voice in the cast. Her potent sound served ideally in the Prelude as Astrée, the goddess of justice who lived with humans during the Golden Age of peace and harmony, only to retreat to the heavens as the constellation Virgo. She returned triumphantly as Diana in the second entrée, using her daunting stage presence and fierce, hilarious dog bark to chide her lover, Adonis, and put up a good fight, ultimately unsuccessful, against Sutphen’s Vénus.

Kayleigh Sprouse made an appealing Plaisir in the Prologue, who then returned with wings and a bow as an irresistibly cute Amour, or Cupid, for the rest of the show. Her flutey, dynamic soprano suited the capricious god as much as her whimsical skipping about the stage and facial expressions bouncing between seraphic smiles and sulking pouts.

Phillip Lopez brought his robust bass-baritone to the role of Le Temps, the god of time who inaugurated the new era of peace in the Prologue. His sure comic timing and broad vocal range were also on display as Adonis in the second entrée. Baritone Hadleigh Adams took the roles of Vulcain, leading the Cyclopes in the Prelude, and the lovelorn Linus in the first entrée, with some rhythmic and intonation shortcomings in both cases.

A small but valiant group of eight singers took the choral parts, playing the Cyclopes at their battle forge in the Prelude. When they are then converted to Cupid’s cause, they exchange their hammers for bows and arrows and curly blond wigs. Soprano Susan Kavinski and mezzo-soprano Charlotte Stewart, both prominent local singers, also took the minor roles of two nymphs to lovely effect.

Dancers Emily Aslin, Alexzander Larson, Cori Lewis, and Matthew Spangler made a uniformly striking quartet in the ballet segments, where they filled the central area of the Folger’s relatively small stage with dynamic movement. Inventive choreography by Isaac Lerner, a mix of French baroque and modern dance, became an integral part of the story telling, as the individual dancers interacted with various characters.

The placement of conductor Patrick Dupre Quigley and the small orchestra of early instruments at the back of the theater, even behind the harpsichord played ably by Leon Shelhase, was not ideal for coordination.

Quigley nonetheless led this well-balanced ensemble with efficient clarity, drawing out the score’s rousing dance rhythms. Contributions from spunky oboes, dulcet flutes, a pair of peeping small flutes (early piccolos), and rustic horns added inestimable color to the performance. The tinkling bells and pizzicato strings that embodied the magical lyre’s enchantment of Uranie in the first entrée were a particular highlight.

The prismatic staging directed by Chas Rader-Shieber, reminiscent of Opera Lafayette’s hallucinatory production of Rameau’s Io in 2023, diverted the eyes bountifully. Well-conceived acting direction contributed to the definition of each character. The costume and scenic design by Jimmy Stubbs offered an abundance of Rococo pastel colors. Venus’s portable shell backdrop and hat of pink bubbles charmed, as did the comic scythe and sundial hat of Le Temps. Visually and musically, Opera Lafayette has a hit on its hands.

Les surprises de l’Amour will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday at the Folger Shakespeare Library. operalafayette.org

Leave a Comment

Name (required):

Email (will not be published) (required):

Website:

Message:

Δ