Welcome to the BEMF Psyché Directors Blog!

As the Boston Early Music Festival’s North American premiere of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Psyché approaches, the BEMF opera directors wanted to invite you to take a behind-the-scenes look at preparations for this historic event. From Psyché’s complex performance history and the decision to mount this exceptionally challenging production, to the inspiration for its original sets and costumes and construction of its dazzling stage machinery, the BEMF Psyché directors offer a unique glimpse into the inner workings of our one-of-a-kind Baroque opera production.

Our first installment recounts how Artistic Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs chose Lully’s Psyché. Up next we will explore the work’s journey from its original form as a magnificent tradédie-ballet in 1671 to a tragédie-lyrique in 1678 (the version on which the BEMF production is based). We hope you enjoy the informative and intriguing story of our Psyché, and look forward to seeing you at our June 2007 performances!

Purchase tickets to Lully’s Psyché

Read musicologist John Powell’s comprehensive article on the history of Lully’s Psyché:

“Never had a spectacle been mounted in France with such a collaboration of artistic talent…” Read more

Why Lully’s Psyché?

by Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, BEMF Artistic Directors

Because many opera companies tend to perform the same handful of works over and over again, the public’s exposure to Baroque opera is confined to a very small set of works (Orfeo, Poppea, Dido and Aeneas, Giulio Cesare, etc.). But the 17th and 18th centuries were one of the richest periods of theater music in history, with more stage-worthy operas created than any other period—so the repertory is truly deep and rich. BEMF is ideally placed to research, organize, and present the finest of this unexplored operatic trove. Through partnership with scholars and specialists from many fields, BEMF has become a laboratory of early music performance, forging a collaborative spirit essential in tackling the challenging and complex operas of the Baroque.

As we looked back over the glorious works BEMF has performed since 1997, the genius of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s magnificent Thésée elicits especially fond memories. BEMF’s 2001 production of this masterpiece was simply one of our favorite projects, and an audience favorite as well. Still, those of us involved in the planning recall how very difficult it was to narrow our choice to just one of Lully’s beautiful tragedies lyriques. Like the mature operas of Mozart, Verdi, or Puccini, each Lully opera is as great as the next one, so final choices are often based on logistics, marketability, and availability of the artists most suited to the main roles.

Finally the time is ripe for BEMF to delve into more of Lully’s sublime music. This time we have chosen the elephant in the room for Baroque opera presenters: Psyché (first composed in 1671). This opera generated more discussion, revivals, and imitations (such as Matthew Locke’s Psyche in 1674) than most other works of Lully. Oddly enough, it has not been given a full-length Baroque staging to date. There are many reasons for this neglect: the great number of surviving sources (each one different); the complex staging requirements; the extraordinarily large number of singers and dancers, to name a few. Many presenters have simply been scared away.

But Psyché offers BEMF a fine opportunity to display the many strengths it was developed over the past decade: an all-star Baroque orchestra, led by the irrepressible Robert Mealy; a cast of leading international stars performing with exciting new discoveries; a colorful troupe of Baroque dancers bring elegance, humor, and theatricality to the stage; awe-inspiring sets and costumes based on historical modes; and historically-informed staging directed by Gilbert Blin with the ebullient choreography of Lucy Graham.

As we finalize plans for our monumental operatic centerpiece in June of 2007, we know that our production of Psyché has been bolstered by the recent recording of the 2001 BEMF Thésée cast, alongside a brilliant group of new singers that we’ve engaged for Psyché. That experience provided an invaluable head start on the musical and stylistic preparation for Psyché. Inspired by our French Baroque muse, Gilbert Blin, who provided dramaturgical and rhetorical guidance, Thésée came to life again at the Bremen recording studio in a new and profoundly moving way. That magic has elevated our planning for Psyché to new heights. We think of BEMF operas as our children whom we love equally, but we may soon e looking upon Psyché as the most special enfant of them all.

Psyché: The story of a spectacle and a royal mistress
(A personal interpretation)

Stephen Stubbs

The strong identification of the personal and political agenda of Louis XIV with the works of his chief musician, Jean-Baptiste Lully, has long been recognized. Each new work served Louis’ purposes of the moment. In this sense, Psyché was not a single “moment” but rather two—one in 1671 and another in 1678. And both of these, I believe, are tied to the beautiful, brilliant, and noble Madame de Montespan, who as Louis’ chief mistress, was known to many as “the real Queen of France.” In 1668, Molière wrote and performed Amphitryon in which the court generally recognized Louis in the figure of Jupiter, his new favorite in the character of Alcmene, and Molière, playing the title role, was seen as the cuckolded M. de Montespan.

In 1671 Louis commissioned a piece to be performed at the Tuileries with the magnificent sets created for Ercole Amante, which had been in storage for ten years. Three poets candidated a theme—Quinault proposed Proserpine (which he would realize as a tragédie lyrique in 1680), Racine proposed Orfeo, and Molière suggested the piece he had begun as a sister work to Amphitryon: Psyché. The King chose the latter.

A portrait of Madame de Montespan from 1671 can also be interpreted in connection with Psyché. The painting, by Gaspard Netscher, shows a harp-playing Mme. De Montespan with a guitar-playing Cupid at her feet. Could it be Louis here playing the enamored “Love” to her Psyché? The detail of the guitar could bring the guitar-playing King to mind.

By the time of Isis, the fifth consecutive tragédie lyrique by the team of Lully and Quinault, Louis was known to be having an affair with a much younger mistress called Madame de Ludre. It was easy to see her as the lovely nymph Io with Louis taking on one of his recurring guises as Jupiter. Who then could be the jealousy-enraged Junon if not Mme. de Montespan. She saw it this way herself and the only thing to assuage her anger was the banishment of the offending librettist (Quinault) and a quick decision to revive the Psyché theme. The stage was set for Lully to reshape his success of 1671 with the talented young librettest Thomas Corneille into the gorgeous tragédie lyrique of 1678.

Stage Director's View

Gilbert Blin

Psyché, besides being based on one of the most beautiful myth of the old world, is the work of many brilliant minds. In 1671 King Louis XIV asked French writers to come with a subject for a play that would allow the display of a fantastic scene taking place in the Underworld. Molière won the contest with the subject of Psyché. The project for the stage was so ambitious, and the time so scarce, that he requested the assistance of Pierre Corneille for most of the spoken text, and Phillippe Quinault for the sung verses. Lully composed the incidental music and also write the Italian portion of this drama.

Several years later, Lully, at the peak of his activities, decided to present a full opera integrating the successful music he wrote for Molière, now dead 5 years. Lully asked the young brother of Pierre Corneille, Thomas, to write a new libretto; the Psyché of 1678 is therefore a masterpiece where 4 of the best writers of the “Grand Siècle” join the supreme composer of the French Court, Jean Bapstiste Lully.

The story of the beautiful mortal Psyché, the persecutions she endures from the jealous goddess of Beauty Vénus, and the Love she inspires in Cupid himself make the body of the story. Cupid doesn’t want to be recognized but curiosity takes over Psyché. She will, when Cupid is asleep, discover the true identity of her lover. This is the moment that so many painters have depicted. The charm is broken and Vénus, to test Psyché, orders her to fulfill a symbolic task: to go to the underworld. Psyché, saved by Love, returns to appease the jealous Vénus, and Jupiter makes Psyché immortal. Her wedding to Cupid, the union of the human soul with the divine Love, will be eternal. At the end of the original myth Psyché gives birth to the child she has conceived with Love. The name of the child is “Volupté”: we hope to generate the same fruit of pleasure with the performance of Boston Early Music Festival in June 2007.

A Conversation with Choreographer Lucy Graham

BEMF General Manger Shannon Canavin recently had the opportunity to speak with BEMF Choreographer Lucy Graham about her work on the dance for Lully’s Psyché, as well as her inspirations and philosophies on choreographing for Baroque opera.

Shannon Canavin: What were your inspirations for the choreography for Lully’s Psyché?

Lucy Graham: The wonderful music of Lully is probably my greatest inspiration. After all, he was not only a composer of music but also a dancer and this is so apparent when you choreograph to his music. There is a certain empathy and wonderful rhythmical quality which almost suggests what you should do as a choreographer. Although there are no surviving notations from the 1678 production of Psyché, there is a well-known piece of music in the form of a chaconne which has a surviving notation and was interpolated into this tragedie-lyrique at a later date. In order to get “the right flavor” of dance composition, I have looked at the beautiful notated choreographies of Louis Pecour who was a pupil of Pierre Beauchamps, one of the choreographers and dancers who originally created some of the “noble-style” dances in Psyché.
There are many historical writings and examples of other choreographers work with which I’m familiar, having been a choreographer of this and the grotesque style for about 30 years. Jean Favier and Raoul Auger Feuillet amongst many others inform the work I create in Baroque operas of this era. Having said this I must not forget Gregorio Lambranzi, a dancing master whose creative imagination seemed to know no bounds when it came to giving individual character dances a distinct flavor.

Rebecca Harris-Warrick, a dance historian, has been my guiding light on the workings of Lully along with the help and advice of musicologist John Powell who has compared many of the different versions of this opera. It has been fascinating to see how many dancers were in each divertissement, who they were, what characters they portrayed and what role they played in the telling of the story. For instance, some revivals inserted into the Commedia section of Act 5, scaramouchettes and matassins, the latter being egg throwers, particular to Venice.

The most important aspect of my work is that the dance has to be organic and has to enhance the context of the music, poetry, drama, sets, props, and costumes of each opera production. I believe that the dance component can’t exist in a vacuum; it needs to be essential to the plot. I try to vary the dances so that each character and each scene is particularly represented. There are many different characters in Psyché, so the audience will be treated to a wide array of dances within the Baroque theatrical styles, from the highbrow to the grotesque.

SC: What’s unique about the dance in this opera?

LG: This opera has a massive amount of dance—the most I’ve ever had to do in one production. And unlike some other operas, each divertissement within Psyché begins with dancing instead of singing (a Lullian trait). There’s what I call the “club sandwich effect”—dance, singing, dance, singing, and dance for each scene. Therefore, it is the responsible role of the dance to introduce the dramatic intent in each divertissement: the dance foreshadows the drama of the text and the singing.

SC: How does choreographing an opera in modern times differ from working during the 17th century?

LG: Dancing was very much a part of the daily life at the court and in some types of theatre at that time. It was extremely popular, well understood, and appreciated so there was often a huge cast of dancers in 17th-century productions. Such a large number of dancers isn’t possible for a modern production because today there are far fewer dancers skilled in this art form. It is difficult and extremely expensive to assemble a large cast of dancers with many changes of lavish costume. Additionally, today’s audiences have a different cultural insight. The symbolism of specific gestures and movements that are part and parcel of Baroque choreography and staging, would have been understood by a 17th-century audience and would have enhanced the text. Therefore, although I can incorporate these ideals, I need to make the dances intelligible to modern audiences while still utilizing Baroque forms of dance and gesture.

The performing spaces today are often very different from those in the late 17th century. This poses its own set of challenges in relation to mounting a production which gives us a flavor of the Baroque era. Often stages were 2 to 3 times as deep as the stage at Cutler Majestic, so you simply cannot create the same sense of perspective and depth of choreography on the stage. Having said that we are accommodating 16 “movers” in Psyché: 6 children, 8 wonderful dancers from Europe and North America, and 2 actors/movers/flyers. In the 17th century, there were as many as 25 to 40 dancers in different performances of Psyché, as well as the singers on stage!

SC: I understand that you’ll be working with members of PALS Children’s Chorus again; how do you work with modern children in a Baroque opera?

LG: Yes, we’re very happy to have many of the singers and dancers who appeared in the 2005 production of Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow back for Psyché. As talented and experienced as they are though, children nowadays aren’t brought up with dancing as much a part of their lives as 17th-century children from wealthy or theatrical backgrounds would have been. Children naturally move quicker than adults. This natural “lack of control and balance” would have been overcome under the guidance of a dancing master with daily practice of dance movement and etiquette by the child. This has to be taken into consideration in planning for their performances. Also, our time with these children is also much more limited as they attend school every day. They may not be as involved as they might have been in the 17th century but I am very impressed by the absolute professionalism of these children who can both sing and dance. It is no mean feat to achieve both.

SC: I’ve been hearing a lot about Psyché’s magnificent Chaconne; can you tell me more?

LG: As I mentioned at the beginning, a chaconne danced by a Harlequin, was added to the re-mounting of Psyché well after 1678. I have therefore decided to use this wonderful music for a comic scenario involving some actor/dancers, in the Commedia dell’Arte style. I have used political satire which was often very subtle when incorporated into opera/ballet performances of the time. This satire involves Punch who was always depicted with a hunch-back and a hook nose, not unlike descriptions and portraits of William of Orange himself who was Stadholder of the Netherlands. In the 1670s William and Louis were involved in a long and costly war and to Louis’ alarm, William married Mary of England in 1677, thus creating a powerful alliance against France. This alliance as well as the war forced the reluctant Louis into capitulation with the signing the Treaty of Nijmegan in 1678. William and Mary were a thorn in Louis’ side and he referred to them as “the beggars of Europe,” much to the delight of his court. It is with this married couple in mind that Harlequin and Punch act out their story.

This scene is part of the finale, featuring 4 gods with their own retinues, so there is a good deal of opportunity to vary the characters and styles of dance which will hopefully create a fabulous culmination to this visual feast. It should all be a huge amount of fun to do and to watch.

SC: Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful information on Lully’s Psyché; I know we are all looking forward to seeing the fantastic dances you have dreamt up for us this year!

Anna Watkins on Costumes

All is going well on the costume front in the UK, where we are busily constructing dozens of colorful costumes. We have about 8 costume makers working on the show, all of whom are working madly to deliver the costumes by May 7th! I spend much of my time visiting them and working on the pieces I am constructing myself. Our Headdress maker Debbie is making about 70 head dresses for the production, and we have someone working on masks with one eye for the Cyclops; their hair is made from cotton mops which I have dyed grey and will stitch onto baseball caps. The prologue requires a large number of costumes for the gods and their followers. We are constructing costumes that suggest the appropriate elements, such as fruit and flowers for the followers of Vertumne and water for the followers of Palernmon. I have had a wonderful time exploring stores—all around the world, literally—looking for gold, silver, and other remarkable floral elements; while visiting a friend in a small Cretan village in Greece on a brief weeks holiday recently, I found some gold ferns in a local store—I bought 10 and have now painted them blue to turn them into headdresses for the 5 followers of Palernmon. During the opera summit in Boston this past January, I had the opportunity to meet with several of the singers to do some costume fittings, and we found some wonderful costumes from past productions that will be re-worked for Vertumne (Jason McStoots) and Flore (Teresa Wakim). The costumes are now with me in the UK as I work on their transformations (my favorite tool of the moment for this purpose is called a Kimble gun, which has a sharp needle that shoots a short plastic tag into the material so that flowers can be easily attached to the costume). I’ve posted some sketches from the show—they are but a small handful of the tremendous creations inspired by the lavish French Baroque court.

Psyché Set Designs

When thinking about history we have a tendency to lump large chunks of time and space together. We use terms such as Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical to identify and separate styles and time periods. This is certainly a useful way to distinguish between major periods and styles, but within these there is always variety.

This is certainly true with the history of Baroque staging, particularly Baroque opera staging and scenic practices. Scenery of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is often identified as Baroque and separated from that of the nineteenth century because its primary movement was horizontal, instead of the vertical movement that became possible when theaters were built with fly towers allowing proscenium-height scenery to be stored above the stage.

The standard component of this Baroque scenery was the wing flat, a device that made it possible to change an entire set of scenery in a few seconds. Wing flats work in groups mounted in pairs along the sides of the stage. Each group contains two or more flats on which are painted parts of a perspective scene. The scene is changed by pulling the front flat in each set offstage, thereby revealing another set of flats behind.

Broadly speaking, the use of this kind of scenery could be said to begin with Monteverdi and extend as far as Mozart. But there is a lot of time and space between the premiere of Orfeo in Mantua in 1607 to that of Die Zauberflöte in Vienna in 1791, during which time the forms we know of as opera, the proscenium theater, and wing flats were invented in Italy, spread across Europe, and became standards in public entertainment.

Part of the difficulty in dealing with the staging of Lully’s operas is that it is a period in which standard forms were still being created; for instance, Lully did not refer to either version of Psyché as an opera. Today, when we look back on the history of theater architecture, we see a somewhat uninterrupted style—that of the proscenium theater—from the early seventeenth century to our time. But in France, in the 1670s, there was no longstanding tradition of the proscenium arch or of wing flats. The proscenium arch had first come to Paris in 1641 with the construction of a theater in the Palais Cardinal, but even in the late 1670s the proscenium theaters in Paris could still be counted on one hand.

In addition to the proscenium theater, theatrical events in this period took place in several other kinds of venues. There were indoor theaters with neither prosceniums nor wing flats, outdoor theaters, court entertainments in great halls or intimate chambers, as well as in the palace courtyards and formal gardens where clipped hedges and alleys of trees created wings providing for entrances and even the ability to introduce scenery.

We know a fair amount about the original productions of Psyché. The 1671 tragicomédie et ballet version of Psiché was written at the request of Louis XIV to reuse the machinery built for the French premiere of Cavalli’s Ercole Amante at the Salle de Machines theater in the Tuileries Palace. (This huge theater in the new proscenium style, designed by the Vigarani family—who also designed the scenery and machinery for Ercole Amante—was apparently only used for these two productions and not again until the mid-eighteenth century.) The 1678 tragédie lyrique of Psyché was performed at the theater in the Palais Royal in celebration of the recent peace with Holland; the scenery was designed by Carlo Vigarani, whom we believe was in charge of major changes made to the theater a few years earlier.

It is clear that the scenery for this production, and many others held during that and other festivals at Versailles, was not made up of wing flats painted to show a perspective scene. For decoration, this production used the existing architecture—La Cour de Marbre is an outdoor courtyard surrounded by buildings on three sides and open on the fourth—and what we might call Scenic Props. After looking at reproductions of the surviving original designs by Carlo Vigarani, many of which were for outdoor spectacles at Versailles, we were drawn to this garden setting. And the fair0tale nature of Psyché as well as the historic importance of gardens—Louis XIV loved the Versailles gardens so much that he wrote a book on how to view them—convinced us that this was the right setting for this production.

Psyché is the first opera in which the Boston Early Music Festival will use flying machines; each time the 1678 libretto mentions flying, it will be in our production. Five characters in the opera will fly “Peter Pan-style” and others will descend and ascend in the gloire—a cloud-like contraption based on designs by Torelli, an Italian designer from the 1650’s. We will be assisted in our flying endeavors by Flying by Foy (Las Vegas, NV).

The resulting visual display at the BEMF Psyché shall evoke a fairy-tale within the private gardens at Versailles.

—Caleb Wertenbaker