Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse
(Comic Ballet in Three Acts)
van Dyck, Biren, Hall, Gay
Le Concert Spirituel
Hervé Niquet
Naxos 8.553647
60:44 min
(flac & scans)
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Every so often a recording will appear that challenges our perceptions of a composer. I doubt that I'm the only person to particularly associate Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755) with pleasing but somewhat ephemeral Rococo chamber works, and even in his own day the composer came under fire for his easy facility. Boismortier, incidentally, apparently had a good answer to such charges: “I am,“ he said, “making money.“ But Boismortier was also a composer for the stage, and this delightful ballet-comique, the second of his four dramatic works, casts entirely new light on the composer.
Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse is an interesting work in several respects, not least that it is a rare example of a wholly comic work in the literature of French music theater during this period. First mounted at the Paris Opéra in February 1743, it is also notable for being the first wholly musical work with a libretto by the distinguished dramatist Charles-Simon Favart. It's a collaboration that works extremely effectively, Favart's witty and swift-moving adaptation culled from Book II of Cer-vantes's Don Quixote being well matched by the verve and spirit of the airs and dances composed by Boismortier. The first performances, at which the piece was coupled with Mouret's Les Amours de Regonde, was a lavish production that featured a chorus of thirty-two, and several of the most famous performers of the day, including the great dancer Camargo.
The three-act plot concerns the “exploits of the Don and his squire at the court of an unnamed Duke and Duchess, who to entertain their guests put the pair through a series of imaginary and exotic situations which are, of course, taken as real by the knight and Sancho Panza. This play within a play allows for a clever mixture of high farce and sentiment, the unavailing efforts of the Duchess's lady-in-waiting Altisdore (in the guise of the Queen of Japan) to turn Don Quixote's mind from his idealized beloved Dulcinea leading her through attempted seduction to a cold fury in which she transforms him into a bear and Sancho Panza into a monkey. As events threaten to get out of hand the Duke is eventually called upon to act as deus ex machina, Don Quixote's unswerving devotion to Dulcinea winning him apotheosis as the King of Japan, an event celebrated in the final divertissement.
The booklet notes (excellent, by the way) include a brief contribution from Vincent Tavernier, named as the stage director, although this is obviously not a live performance—had there been an audience they would have required gagging not to have laughed at some points. But all the hallmarks of a thoroughly rehearsed stage performance are certainly there, for the piece is done with vivid immediacy, and a real sense of character. Van Dyck is a genuine haut-contre who portrays the Don with great sympathy and no little sense of nobility, while Biren has a high old time in the role of his squire. The Canadian soprano Meredith Hall has the widest range to encompass, and is excellent either wooing or raging, the latter showing off an impressive lower range. Paul Gay is an authoritative Duke/Merlin. Mention must also be made of Anne Mopin's Japanese Woman, the vocal virtuosity of whose final da capo air (the sole example) reminds us that the conflict between French and Italian operatic styles was very much a live issue at the time Don Quichotte was written. Boismartier's dances, if less sophisticated than those of Rameau, are absolutely enchanting, particularly when played with as much élan as they are here under the lively and stylish direction of Niquet.
Naxos's sound is as clear and bright as the performance, and they provide full texts and translations. How can they come up with something like this at budget price? Well, at least part of the answer in the present instance is that this is a coproduction with the Lorraine region, the area from which Boismortier originally hailed. Both are to be congratulated on a splendid disc that brings to the catalog much the finest work of this composer I've so far encountered.
-Fanfare Brian Robins