(A shorter version of this article originally appeared in May 2022 edition of Opera Now)
Like Mahler, Janacek, Bruckner and Ives, Rameau is no longer a ‘cause’: his works have been widely recorded, his importance and genius recognised and lauded, and his operas are regularly performed, in France and Germany at least. Yet in Britain, we still lag behind. This rare performance of his masterpiece Castor et Pollux is a stepping-stone towards changing this.
When Jonathan and I started talking about putting on a Rameau opera before lockdowns struck in 2020, we discovered that we had in common that not one person had mentioned Rameau during either of our very British musical educations. For me, discovering Rameau's music whilst at university felt like uncovering a secret world of sensuous delights – the endless originality and vitality of his melodic invention and harmonic exploration, the staggering ear for orchestral sonority, unmatched in his era, the luminous beauty of his choruses, the incredible modernity and psychological depth of his operatic characters. He inherits and reinvigorates the by-then tired conventions of French opera, and finds in them endless freshness and opportunity for new means of dramatic expression.
Castor et Pollux is a case in point. The very fine libretto, by Pierre-Joseph Bernard, tells of the quest of the immortal Pollux to save his slain mortal twin brother Castor from Hades; this at the request of the princess Télaïre, Castor's betrothed, who Pollux is of course also in love with. So far, so predictable, you might think: typical Baroque fare - an ancient Greek myth with the Baroque obsession with love triangles, quadrangles, pasted on top. But unusually here, the characters are exceptionally strongly drawn, revealing a complex inner life, and in scene after scene we see their brilliant rhetorical abilities as they twist against the hand that fate has dealt them, manipulating and consoling one another in equal measure.
Rameau responded to his text with a score of incredible richness, subtlety and contrasts. Télaïre’s ravishingly bittersweet solo lament ‘Tristes Apprêts’ with its nimbus of luminous string and bassoon writing surrounding the fragile vocal line, is all the more moving, for instance,for coming after the chromatic desolation of the chorus's funeral march for Castor ‘Que tout gémisse’.
We found in rehearsal that with its basis in a strongly declamatory style, Rameau's vocal writing invites gesture and movement in every phrase. This links it more seamlessly into the element of dance, which in this piece is brilliantly integrated into the work as a whole. In Act 2, Pollux's father (Jupiter) reminds his son of the pleasures of immortality with the help of Hebe and her beguiling entourage. Pollux's terse interjections keep the drama going, rather than everything grinding to a halt for a divertissement, as so often happens with operatic ballet sequences. Later, the dancers and chorus, now demons, bar Pollux's entry to the underworld at the gates of Hades. This demon music was enough to send at least one other composer mad – poor overlooked Jean-Joseph Mouret was heard singing this chorus in the madhouse before his death, at least according to legend.
Rameau was very much influenced by his conversations and collaborations with Voltaire, who had a vision for how to reform opera: simple stories with clear action told in depth. Why did we choose to revive the 1737 version, and not the much more commonly staged 1754 revision? For me, the earlier work is much more serious and moving than the later piece – the character motivations are more convincing, especially for Phébé, the fourth member of the love quadrangle. In the earlier version she loves Pollux who spurns her, and she rouses first the Spartan citizens, and then demons to block his entry to Hades. In the later version, her affection switches to Castor, which hugely vitiates the impact of this impressive scene. The many excisions that Bernard made for the later version speed up the action, but often at the cost of the drama's logic. We also lose much fine music in the pruning undertaken for the later version including the superb trio ‘Je ne verrais plus’ in Act 3.
The characters
Taking a cue from the very last line of the prologue, Minerva can be seen as an interesting framing device. She briefly serves a metatheatrical function, introducing the opera proper after the allegorical Prologue (which charts a course from war to peace). She celebrates the possibility of art which can only happen in a time of peace, and sets up the broad thematic arc of the opera (from war to loving reconciliation) that is about to follow. It’s a deft touch from Bernard which we’ve tried to emphasise here.
As we’ve rehearsed the piece, it became obvious to us that the Prologue has painful contemporary resonances with the current war in Ukraine. The Prologue’s text makes allegorical reference to the Polish War of Succession which had concluded not long before the opera’s premiere. Minerva is the goddess of defensive war, an embodiment of a concept deeply rooted in the European psyche for at least three millennia. NATO is certainly a late flowering (at least partly) of this same idea. Minerva however, is powerless to resist Mars’s attacks, and calls on Venus, goddess of beauty and love to quell Mars.
In the opera proper we are no longer dealing with cyphers and we find characters of real flesh and blood, possessing astonishingly subtle intentions and feelings, however mythic the setting. Telaire is a peculiarly modern 18th century woman in a world of Spartan expectations. Hers is the strongest depiction of mourning that Rameau ever attempted, and her desire to escape this suffering sets off the entire plot. Quite different from her friend Phébé (or, for that matter Pollux, the Spartan hero), she finds no satisfaction in blood vengeance as an amelioration or cancellation of her injuries. She will not accept her fate, and instead, with terrifying single mindedness, follows through with a plan which leads others to sacrifice themselves entirely. Her music is exceptionally beautiful throughout the opera, and the libretto constantly reinforces this impression by showing us the effect on all who come into her presence. In the manner of an Ancient Greek tragedy, her unassailable rhetorical skill is both powerful and emotive.
Phébé, another woman of immense force of character, has entirely different qualities. She has not captivated the men in her life in the manner that Télaïre has, but has very potent compensations: not only is she able to convincingly command the Spartan people to the mouth of Hades to block Pollux’s passage, she is also in contact with darker forces beyond the threshold, summoning demons to erupt forth and assail her recalcitrant lover. These events occur in Act 3. Near the end of Act 5, Pollux states rather matter of factly that her only crime was too much love, which is perhaps true. Télaïre’s love has trumped Phébé’s however, and won the day.
The piece as a whole has an interesting dramatic construction. Each of the first four acts centres around a particular character, who sings the principal aria near the beginning of it. Though Télaïre sets the drama going, it is Pollux’s progress from vengeful brother, to unrequited lover, to conflicted, self-sacrificing hero, to constellation in the heavens, which is the common dramatic and emotional thread through the piece. Though he is the immortal twin, he constantly finds himself buffeted by fate, choosing a course of action that is painful to him at every turn, torn as he is between filial and romantic love, most typified in Act 2. Castor is spotlighted in Act 4, located in the Elysian Fields, where despite being offered endless pleasure and play, he yearns still for a life with Télaïre. His quietly radiant aria is the mirror image of Télaïre ‘s earlier lament.
The fifth act focusses on Télaïre and Castor’s relationship finally restored, culminating in a superb storm sequence (the fourth (!) and finest of the opera), and then all are brought back for the final ensemble, a moment which depicts the cosmic dance of the universe.
Cupid (L’Amour), the main protagonist of the Prologue, remains a hidden force throughout - he is mentioned by both Castor and the Shade (Ombre) in the Elysian fields, his darts reaching even into the underworld. The spirit of love returns at the end as the uniting force of the world, in the wonderful finale, newly discovered by Jonathan and the first time it has been heard anywhere in 285 years! The beautiful aria for Venus, ‘C’est assez regner par les armes’, suffered a similar neglect, so we are delighted bring you both tonight!
Finally, a note on the structural element in the music and how it relates to the drama. The tense battling string lines of the overture (perhaps representing Mars’s war), return at the end of Act V transfigured into major majesty, just as we were told they would be in the Prologue by Minerva. There are a number of little details like this which provide musico-dramatic continuity throughout the piece. These are very forward looking ways of thinking about musical construction for the time Rameau was writing in, especially if one compares Handel or Vivaldi, his direct contemporaries as opera composers. It is yet one more thing to marvel at in this sublime masterpiece, which has been a joy to work on for all of us.