Set Design by CHANTAL THOMAS
The creative team that triumphed with the Théâtre du Châtelet production of Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène, turned their talents to Platée in this Opéra de Paris staging, premièred in 1999 to great acclaim and reprised in 2002, when this recording was made at the magnificent Palais Garnier. Their handling of Rameau’s burlesque on the vicissitudes of love, a piece in which the composer also cocked a snook at the sacrosanct rules of eighteenth-century French opera, is a “pure joy from start to splashing finish” (Wall Street Journal Europe).
“Laurent Pelly’s staging of Platée is an exhilarating display of gags and West Side Story dance routines mixed in with satirical rap...Marc Minkowski conducting the excellent Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble was the instigator of a sparkling orchestral fête” (Opera Now). In the realm of the ancient gods, Mercury and Cithaeron persuade
Jupiter that he can cure his wife Juno’s obsessive jealousy by setting up a mock marriage between himself and Plataea, an astonishingly ugly but supremely self-confident marsh nymph who rules a realm of frogs. When Juno sees how ridiculous the situation is, they argue, her jealousy will vanish. Rameau used Jupiter’s feigned courtship of Plataea – during which he appears as a donkey, an owl, a cloud and a shower of fireworks – to gleefully parody every eighteenth-century musical convention in the book, as the music gurgles, hiccups, croaks and brays.
Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.0, DTS 5.0
Picture Format: 16:9
DVD Format: 1 x DVD 5, 1 x DVD 9, NTSC
Subtitle Languages: FR (Original Language) GB, DE, ES, IT
Running Time: 150 mins
FSK: 0
