A wild carnival sets the stage for gambling, intrigue, trysts and mistaken identities, while long-legged dancers strut lasciviously around stage in revealing crimson costumes. The scene seems taken from a modern day burlesque stage, but rather it comes from an early 18th-century opéra-ballet by the French composer Andre Campra.
On Thursday, French Baroque ensemble Les Arts Florissants will perform a new production of one of Campra's best-known works, Les Fêtes Vénitiennes, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, reviving this Louis XIV-era international hit.
"It was probably one of the most important and one of the most beloved stage productions in 18th-century France," said William Christie, the founder of the ensemble, who will conduct the production. "It was something that was performed at Versailles but also at the Académie Royale de Musique, for people like you and me, the parishioners. It also traveled everywhere, to provincial towns, and I think it even went on to Flanders, to Germany.
To appease a fan base that clamored for more, Campra continued to add vignettes, or entrées, to his opera-ballet. To perform them all, Christie jokes, would take about six hours, or the equivalent of Wagner's Götterdämmerung. But unlike with Wagner, Campra's music allows for improvisation: "This freedom, this liberty that the score gives the interpreter is a marvelous thing for the stage director, someone like Robert Carson, who did our direction for this piece," Christie said. "You can tailor music to what's going on stage in a far more precise and more interesting way than you can in perhaps in some more modern operas where the composer has very definite ideas."
He added: "My rule of thumb is one has to be immensely creative but within bounds."
Listen Above: Christie talks to WNYC's Morning Edition about the production.
LISTEN:
WNYC's John Schaefer speaks to the members of Kronos Quartet about their commissioning project 50 for the Future. (New Sounds)
7:30 am — Wake up with Your Morning Bach; today you'll hear his Oboe Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059. (WQXR)
READ:
Meet the Composer, a podcast hosted by Nadia Sirota and produced by Q2 Music, was named a finalist for a Peabody Award. (Q2 Music)
Composer Kate Soper won the Virgil Thomson Award in Vocal Music, and the composer-librettist team of Lewis Spratlan and James Maraniss received the Charles Ives Opera Prize. (The New York Times)
Remembering the artist, composer, musician and mentor Tony Conrad, who died on April 9. (Frieze)
WATCH:
We're livestreaming, with the help of medici.tv, Wednesday's Augustin Hadelich performance at 7 pm, which you can see here.
Cellos and Yo-Yo Ma's investment tips factor into the most recent episode of HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. (Watch on YouTube)
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You guys, @MeettheComposer is a @PeabodyAwards finalist!!?! https://t.co/KV5m07InCE
— nadia sirota (@nadiasirota) April 12, 2016