PARIS.- With the Argentine Leonardo García-Alarcón in the orchestral direction, the Paris Opera has staged for the first time in Europe the version of ‘Ercole lover’ by Antonia Bembo, a brilliant but little-known composer of the 18th century whom Louis XIV welcomed in Paris after escaping from a violent husband in Venice.
“I saw the manuscript in 2014 and from that time I said ‘we have to do it’,” García-Alarcón (La Plata, 1976) explained to EFE about the opera of this author whose “tumultuous life”, according to the Paris Opera, seems “taken from a novel.”
Fleeing from her husband, Bembo (Venice, 1640-Paris, 1720) sought the protection of the King of France and it was in Paris, where she managed to forge a personal style, halfway between Italian and French culture, with the work ‘Produzioni armoniche’ as the greatest exponent of her talent.
The opera ‘Ercole Amador’ (‘Hercules in Love’) was composed in the French capital in 1707, using the same libretto by Francesco Buti that had already been used by Bembo’s teacher, Francesco Cavalli, for his homonymous work in 1662.
“He wrote this piece thinking that perhaps one day someone would read it,” explained the orchestral director specialized in the Baroque, but Bembo knew that at the time “it was never going to be premiered” because there were not enough means to do so, at the level of staging, choir, orchestra and necessary soloists.
That is why García-Alarcón considers it an extraordinary experience that the Paris Opera has decided to finally bring it to the stage, something that had only happened once before in San Francisco (USA), so that one can finally “hear its music, its orchestration, its ideas” more than three centuries later.
In love with Bembo’s musical intelligence
Regarding the plot, the opera presents a Hercules who in some way represents the king of France, a figure who falls in love with his son’s girlfriend and who consequently wants to kill him, as well as his wife.
The protagonist is “someone who has a lot of power and who exercises it in an illegitimate way,” explained the Argentine orchestral conductor and organist, something that still resonates in our times, with the difference that at that time at least “there were jesters” who could tell the truth to the king and that thus “somehow, they could put him on the right path,” according to García-Alarcón.
For him, the fact that this is also the opportunity to rescue a woman forgotten by history was not a crucial factor in the project, since he really declares himself “in love” with her work beyond that vindicative factor.
“Musically he has a spirit of incredible vivacity and intelligence. There are many men who are also forgotten in the history of music, many, but when I decided to do this work it was really because of the quality,” said García-Alarcón.
This version of ‘Hercules in Love’ – which in turn is based on ‘The Trachinias’, by Sophocles, and Book IX of ‘The Metamorphoses’, by Ovid – has staging by the British Netia Jones and choreography by the French Maud Le Pladec.
In Paris it has been performed since May 28 at the Opera headquarters in the Place de la Bastille (its most modern stage) and the shows will conclude on June 14.
As for García-Alarcón, who lives in Switzerland, this is the third time he has taken the baton for the Paris Opera.
The last time had been in 2019 with the successful presentation of ‘The Gallant Indies’, an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Louis Fuzelier, and previously he had been in Paris with a work precisely by Francesco Cavalli, Bembo’s mentor, called ‘L’Eliogabalo’.
‘Ercole lover’ is not his only project of the season in France, since in July he will be at the controls of his orchestra, the Cappella Mediterranea, to present the well-known ‘The Magic Flute’ by Mozart, at the prestigious annual opera festival of Aix-en-Provence.
