Enchanting
I find that William Christie, with whatever director he is working with, always manages to strike a fine balance between fidelity to the spirit of Baroque opera and making meaningful use of modern theatrical techniques that don't so much revise the work as put it into a context that makes it more accessible to a wider audience. That's certainly the case when working with the opera director Robert Carsen (Les Boréades), and the narrowing of the gap between the past and the present is taken quite literally in this production of Jean-Baptiste Lully's Armide (1686), the prologue filmed on location at Versailles, with ballet sequences much like the ones traditionally seen in the intervals of the televised New Year's Day Concerts from Vienna. There on the bed of the King of France amidst the praise given to Louis XIV, Paul Agnew falls asleep and, like in a dream, goes back to a stylised past where the story of...
Five stars, but...
Five stars for the music, Les Arts Florissants and Stéphanie d'Oustrac but, if it could be done retrospectively, I would fire the choreographer (Jean-Claude Gallota). The choreography reminded me of Tai-Chi classes except that, in Armide, all participants seemed to be "under the influence". And, as I heard and saw it, their movements did not seem to "cling" to the music. Get Atys if you have not done so already, and see the difference!
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