2011 Next Wave Festival SEP 2011 Donald Baechler, Red + Blue Rose (detail), 2011 BAM 2011 Next Wave Festival sponsor Published by: BAM 2011 Brooklyn Academy of Music Ronald P. Stanton Alan H. Fishman, presents Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board Atys Karen Brooks Hopkins, President BAM Howard Gilman Opera House Sep 18 at 3pm; Sep 20, 21, 23 & 24 at 7:30pm Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer Approximate running time: four hours including two intermissions By Jean-Baptiste Lully Les Arts Florissants Opéra Comique Musical direction by William Christie Directed by Jean-Marie Villégier Associate director Christophe Galland Scenic design by Carlo Tommasi Costume design by Patrice Cauchetier Choreography by Francine Lancelot† and Presenting sponsor for Atys Béatrice Massin Performed by Compagnie Fêtes galantes Lighting design by Patrick Méeüs Wigs by Daniel Blanc Makeup by Suzanne Pisteur Atys is made possible with the generous support of Ronald P. Stanton and Performed in French with English titles The Delancey Foundation. Leadership support for Atys is provided Associate partner: Compagnie Fêtes galantes by The Devitre Fund; Geoffrey C. Hughes Foundation; The Florence Gould Foundation; The Andrew W. Mellon Coproduced by BAM, Opéra Comique, théâtre de Caen, Foundation; and The SHS Foundation. Opéra national de Bordeaux, and Les Arts Florissants Additional support provided by Susan Baker & Michael Lynch; Anne Hendricks Bass Foundation; Mr. & Mrs. Henry Christensen III; The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust; The Grand Marnier Foundation; Charles and Mildred Schnurmacher Foundation; The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc.; and Joseph A. Stern. Atys Paul Agnew Benjamin Alunni Cyril Auvity Sophie Daneman Emmanuelle de Negri Bernard Deletré Jean-Charles di Zazzo Liesbeth Devos Francisco Fernández-Rueda Élodie Fonnard Ed Lyon Marc Mauillon Ingrid Perruche Rachel Redmond Anna Reinhold Arnaud Richard Nicolas Rivenq Callum Thorpe Reinoud Van Mechelen Atys CAST Atys Ed Lyon Cybèle Anna Reinhold* Sangaride Emmanuelle de Negri Célénus Nicolas Rivenq Idas Marc Mauillon Doris Sophie Daneman Mélisse Ingrid Perruche Dieu du Sommeil Paul Agnew Morphée Cyril Auvity Le Temps; le fleuve Sangar Bernard Deletré Maître de cérémonie / Alecton Jean-Charles di Zazzo The Impresario Olivier Collin Flore / Suite de Sangar Élodie Fonnard* Iris Rachel Redmond* Melpomène Liesbeth Devos Zéphir / Suite de Sangar Francisco Fernández-Rueda* Zéphir Reinoud Van Mechelen* Phobétor Callum Thorpe* Phantase Benjamin Alunni Songe Funeste Arnaud Richard *soloist from the 2011 edition of Le Jardin des Voix Dancers Compagnie Fêtes Galantes: Bruno Benne, Sarah Berreby, David Berring, Laura Brembilla, Olivier Collin, Estelle Corbière, Laurent Crespon, Claire Laureau, Adeline Lerme, Akiko Veaux Gil Isoart courtesy of Opéra national de Paris Priestesses Elizabeth Carey, Marie de Testa, Laura DiOrio, Stephanie Feiger, Marissa Maislen, Meredith Napolitano, Hannah Wilson, Rebecca Ellen Wolf Choir and orchestra Les Arts Florissants Musical consultant Paul Agnew Costume design assistant Anne Autran Dumour Choreography assistant Béatrice Aubert Music coach Benoît Hartoin Choir direction François Bazola French coach Anne Pichard Assistant stage manager Kris Longley-Postema Surtitle stage managers Isabel Martin, Melissa Wegner Interpreter Maory Gastelo Recreation of the 1987 production at Opéra Comique, Paris, with the generous support of Ronald P. Stanton. Special thanks to the Opéra national de Paris for the loan of the costumes of the 1987 production of Atys. The publisher of the score and the music material is Éditions des Abbesses—collection “Les Arts Florissants,” directed by William Christie. Act III. Featured: Bernard Richter (foreground) and Gil Isoart Photo by Pierre Grosbois Atys SYNOPSIS Prologue Time and the Hours are celebrating Louis XIV. Flore precedes spring so as to woo him before he goes to war. But Melpomène, the muse of tragedy, pushes them aside: she wants to take advantage of winter and the assembled court to recall the love of Cybèle and Atys. Then Iris reconciles them: may Nature and Art unite to celebrate Atys. Act I Atys gathers the Phrygians to celebrate the goddess Cybèle. His friend Idas sets his religious zeal against his insensitivity. After having announced his resolution to never fall in love, Atys admits to have failed. They are interrupted by Sangaride and Doris, who are honoring Cybèle. Sangaride is to wed King Celenus soon, but she confides to Doris that she loves Atys. However, Atys opens his heart to her: since he is to die after the nuptials, she should know that he loves her. The reciprocity of their feelings drives them to despair. But the ceremony to the goddess interrupts them and Cybèle announces she will choose her sacrificer. Act II King Celenus confides to Atys his fear of not being loved by Sangaride. Atys must reassure his rival! Cybèle wishes to honor Atys and choose him as her sacrificer. Celenus is delighted for his friend. Cybèle tells her secret motives to her confidante Mélisse: her love for mortal Atys is all too human. Then the Nations and Zephyrs gather to celebrate Cybèle’s choice. Act III Doris and Idas come to tell Atys that Sangaride is intent on canceling the wedding and asking for Cybèle’s protection. Overcome by sleep ordered by Cybèle, Atys falls into slumber. The deities of sleep and the Dreams let Atys know that Cybèle loves him and advise him to be faithful. Atys awakens with Cybèle at his bedside. Sangaride comes to beseech the goddess. Atys prevents her from revealing their love but cannot silence Cybèle. Sangaride leaves in grief. Cybèle suffers from Atys’ indifference toward her. Act IV Convinced that Atys is in love with Cybèle, Sangaride resigns herself to her marriage to Celenus, who tells Atys he is thrilled. After a moment of disappointment, the two lovers renew their vows and decide to employ Atys’ new power to their love’s advantage. The river Sangar invites his retinue to celebrate his son-in-law. Atys undertakes a daring enterprise: he announces that Cybèle forbade the wedding so that Sangaride may become a priestess of her rite. He abducts Sangaride. Act V Cybèle reveals everything to Celenus and summons the young lovers. They appeal for clemency on each other’s behalf. But merciless Cybèle invokes the hellish deity Alecton to bewitch Atys. The latter mistakes Sangaride for a monster and kills her. Recovering his senses, Atys appeals for rebellion against the heartless gods. While Cybèle is smitten with remorse, the dying Atys is brought back after he stabs himself. Cybèle turns him into a pine tree so that nature will remember this love. Atys Act III. Featured: Bernard Richter (foreground) Photo by Pierre Grosbois BACKGROUND OF ATYS Atys became known as the “king’s opera.” Louis XIV had chosen its subject matter from Ovid and supervised its mise-en-tragédie by Philippe Quinault. He carefully followed the rehearsals of the work at the court set up in Saint-Germain en-Laye in the winter of 1675 between two campaigns of the Dutch War. And even before its first performance on January 10, 1676, he sang whole passages of it. This greatly honored his “Surintendant de la musique” (overseer of music), Jean-Baptiste Lully, whose Atys was the fourth tragédie en musique. The 37-year-old king had been ruling supreme for 15 years. He had taken advantage of that long period to carry on the centralization of the kingdom’s cultural life. In order to extol French singularity at a time when Italy was thought to be the cradle of the arts, he chiefly fostered dance and literature. In the 1650s Lully was asked to transform courtly ballet into polished entertainment. With Molière, he devised a more dramatic choreographic formula, comédie-ballet. Finally, when Louis XIV stopped dancing, some daring ideas and fortuitous meetings led him, Lully, and Quinault to dub that which was mainly a political scheme, tragédie en musique. The term tragédie referred to the presence of noble protagonists who spoke in a specific language, the recitative. As the most thorough musical expression and a binder of musical forms, the recitative devised by Lully had made French opera possible three years earlier with the premiere of Cadmus et Hermione. The recitative revealed the musicality of French language: from then on, opera was no longer the Italians’ privilege. Louis XIV supplied Lully with regal means, and the evening of January 10, 1676, at the old castle’s ballet hall, was splendid. In Ovid’s Fasti and Metamorphoses, Atys is turned into a pine tree for having resisted goddess Cybèle’s love. Metamorphosed by Quinault and Lully, his fate shows the unavoidable submission of sentiment to politics, leading to a tragic conclusion—quite unusual in French opera. Atys Lully’s success also rested on the finances of his theater in Paris. Named Académie royale de musique, it was set up in the hall of the Palais-Royal. From May 1676 the theater was thronged with audiences and nobility three times a week, according to Mme de Sévigné: “The decorations exceed all that you have seen; the costumes are magnificent and stylish. There are highly beautiful scenes; there is a sleep and dream segment whose device is amazing. The symphony is all basses and with such drowsymaking tones that one marvels at Baptiste making a fresh start.” Until 1753, Atys was revived, thanks to adaptations in the style of the day. At Paris fairs, the successive Atys parodies contributed to a new genre called opéra-comique. By the end of the Age of Enlightenment, only Quinault survived the changes in musical taste. The libretto to Atys was arranged by Marmontel and set anew to music by Piccinni in 1780 at the Académie. Then Lully was ignored in the 19th century. In the 1970s, a new generation of performers revived the Baroque repertoire.