02-07-2025
Les Indes galantes review — hip-hop baroque turns Rameau into a rave
Rameau's 1735 opéra-ballet is called The Glamorous Indies but it is more like a baroque Race Across the World. We dash to Turkey, Persia and the Peru of the Incas (but about as real as the Peru of Paddington Bear).
The final act is called 'The Savages': here the princess Zima decides to spurn a Frenchman and a Spaniard in favour of a suitor from among her people. Yet these Native Americans conclude contentedly that 'the conquerors bring peace to us''. Vive L'Europe!
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Bintou Dembélé's staging, which has its roots in a landmark show at the Opéra National de Paris in 2019, and now arrives at the Grange Festival in Hampshire on a European tour, dumps the holiday destinations and the elaborate effects for a street aesthetic. It feels like a political statement as much as an artistic one.
A work performed for Louis XV at the Palais-Royal in Paris would have carefully put every performer in their place. Here, however, the stage is bare, and music, movement and voice all emerge from one body of performers. Tracksuited chorus members (the Namur Chamber Choir) and opera soloists join the hip-hop dancers of Structure Rualité. For their part the on-stage conductor Leonardo Garcia-Alarcón and players of Cappella Mediterranea are barefoot (all except the trumpeters, who perhaps missed the memo).
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The result is an impressive feat of co-ordination — and endurance, given that on first night the dancers were wearing their krumping kit in 30-degree heat. With a luxuriously large ensemble, ranging from the batsqueak of the sopranino recorder to the thwack of bass drums, Garcia-Alarcón summons Rameau's shimmering effects; period bassoons add an invigorating burr. The high point is a climactic chorus, Forêts paisibles, where an exhilarating display of physical prowess from the dancers doesn't come at the expense of vocal and instrumental glitter.
Regrets? A few more than rien, unfortunately. Visual monotony dulls the musical colours — the rudimentary lighting effects leave the orchestra stranded in half-gloom, often the performers too. Sending the singers or dancers for sorties into the audience feels haphazard, rather than atmospheric. And a few attempts to nod to the intricacies of the original plot left me largely baffled (the four characterful singers — Laurène Paternò, Ana Quintans, Alasdair Kent and the especially impressive baritone Andreas Wolf — take multiple roles). This radical Rameau is undeniably powerful; a little more attention to detail would give it much more of a kick.★★★☆☆225min (including dinner interval)To Jul 2,
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