New year, New York, new opera

Silvester fireworks in Mainz

I have an operatically eventful January ahead of me here in Germany: Enescu in Frankfurt, Verdi in München, hopefully a Wozzeck double-bill in Darmstadt, and if I can manage it, Elektra in Dresden. I am, believe it or not, planning to get some work done as well. But while all this excitement is keeping me busy over here, my beloved New York will also be having a very exciting month of opera. A recent bounty of press releases contained news too good not to share with you all, including new and new-to-NYC opera galore.

Le roi et le fermier: Il ne faut s'étonner de rien

The forces of Opera Lafayette are currently giving "Le roi et le fermier," Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny's 1762 opera, its "modern world premiere" on a tour which started in Washington, D.C., came to NYC on Thursday, and will finish up at Versailles. In musical and dramatic style, the piece is in transition between genres. (An early printing of the text by Sedaine calls it a "comedy with bits of music.") There is a great deal of dialog, a little recit, and quite a few ariettes and ensembles. The whole is, if not sensational, clever and charming, and the performers of Opera Lafayette put it across well.

Monsigny himself complained of the difficulties of mounting the piece, remarking that it needed not only an able musician and accomplished artist, but a friend who would trust him in his risky experiment with "a new genre of music." The plot was drawn from the English theater "or rather," according to Monsigny, "from an old story which has nothing but to substantiate it but tradition. Charles V or Henri IV (says tradition) got lost in a forest one night, as he was returning from the hunt. He took shelter with a woodcutter, and there experienced, for perhaps the first time, how a man behaves to another man when lacking, through ignorance, the profound respect which he ought to have for his king." Monsigny was enchanted by the dramatic possibilities this opened up for the articulation of truths about human nature and human society. The censors of 1762 were less delighted. Although the social critique seemed relatively gentle to my post-1789 sensibilities--wickedness lies in the abuse of power, not the system of power--it was sufficiently sharp to earn its composer respect in his old age as "Citizen Monsigny."