In late February 1688, the Jesuit fathers of the Collège Louis-le-Grand, an elite secondary school in central Paris catering to the sons of influential patricians, presented its annual pre-Lenten concert. Featured on the program were two intermingled offerings — a performance of Saul, an earnest five act tragedy in Latin, long since lost to time, by Reverend Pierre Chamillart, punctuated by a taut collection of altogether original dramatic vignettes set as tragédie en musique, a recent custom-crafted commission for the Society of Jesus by ambitious 40-year old working composer, Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
David et Jonathas, a taut Old Testament tale of unwavering devotion and regal monomania plucked from the Book of First Samuel by author/preacher/librettist François de Paule Bretonneau, generated only slight attention following its premiere, public reaction doubtless circumscribed by limited access to the work. Contemporary commercial remounts would never be a feature of Charpentier’s surging, psychologically acute scriptural thriller nor, for that matter, command performances at Versailles, although Louis XIV was rumoured to have admired it.
Periodically restaged in a variety of other Jesuit settings, Charpentier’s sprawling anecdotal account of three prominent Biblical personalities — Saul, first ruler of Israel; Jonathas, his son and David, loving friend, shepherd hero, Israelite king to be — all drawn into a common narrative force field gripped by violence, gradually slipped from notice. What could not be forever set aside or forgotten, however, was the brilliance of Charpentier’s music, the variety and daring of David et Jonathas’ compositional architecture, its energy, its power to move and engage.
Jean-Baptiste Lully, Surintendant de la musique de la Chambre du roi, tirelessly unscrupulous defender of his longtime monopoly at court, was dead. A new chapter in French opera had begun, Charpentier, an unwitting principal player in a gathering process of artistic reform.
Released on DVD, Blueray and dual CD by Château de Versailles Spectacles in 2023, live-recorded in the palace’s stunning Chapelle Royale in 2022, Toronto-based stage director Marshall Pynkoski and choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, in partnership with an enthusiastic team of like-minded creatives, weave an operatic tapestry laced with Baroque splendour, costumes by internationally acclaimed couturier Christian Lacroix raising the art of meticulous tailoring and elaborate brocade to the level of masterpiece.
Seen from a more grounded level, set designers Antoine and Roland Fontaine virtually re-engineer the chapel’s nave, a pre-fabricated faux marble-tiled platform creating a compact ersatz stage, a monumental double staircase capped by a swagged red velvet canopy towering above the altar at one end of 17th century starchitect Jules Hardouin-Mansart’s long narrow vaulted interior. A dazzling Neoclassical confection, deconsecrated in the 1800s, frescoed and gilded beyond any measure of reasonable earthly reality, chapel and set, exhaustively explored by video director Olivier Simonnet’s multiple cameras, seamlessly fuse, forming a remarkable conjunction of historic venue and theatrical invention.
Action and tableau share common ground here, Pynkoski driving story forward in a series of charged hyper-energetic scenic leaps of imagination, Philistine vs Israelite, father vs son — blood surging, daggers drawn, swords slashing — animus and war felling warriors and the innocent with equal disregard, suspicion and hatred destroyers of goodness, reason and peace shattered.
Dance, a vital component in all French opera particularly that of the Baroque, is treated as both push and pull by Lajeunesse Zingg, motivated by circumstance and powering circumstance itself. A celebration of love. An extravagant expression of esteem. A flexing of militaristic might. Fluidly merging movement and drama to form a greatly heightened sense of spectacle, David et Jonathas’ tireless troupe of extraordinary dancers thrills and delights. The extended chaconne that closes Act II, graced with several spectacular variations, is positively rapturous in its sweep.
Haut-contre tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen sings a forceful, multi-dimensional David, simultaneously resistant and pliant, valiant and tender, imbuing the conflicted Israelite champion with impressive authority, utterly unfazed by Charpentier’s stratospheric tessitura. Trapped between an insistent call to arms and his gentle love for Jonathas, Van Mechelen’s David prays. Ciel! Quel triste combat, more bargaining with self than Godly appeal, is gorgeously rendered with luscious, liquid harmony and palpable emotion.
Inhabiting an exacting trouser role, soprano Caroline Arnaud contributes a fine, dramatically intense depiction of Saul’s emotionally damaged son, voicing Jonathas with profound singer-actorly expressiveness. A-t-on jamais souffert une plus rude peine?, a cry of pain and helplessness in the face of his father’s rush to war, is rendered with enormous poignancy, Charpentier’s daring use of solitary ground bass as accompaniment boldly reinforcing Jonathas’ acute sense of isolation.
David Witczak appears as Saul, his character drowning in an inescapable torrent of madness and fury. Objet d’une implacable haine, Witczak storms, his bountiful rich baritone thundering with jealousy and obsession. This is a performance of enormous authority and insight; a masterclass in paranoia and compulsion; a tormented, haunted ruin of a man flashed with pathos.
Bass-baritone Virgile Ancely sings a robust, sly, slippery-voiced King Achis, treacherous ruler of the Philistines, manipulative and cunning. Tenor Antonin Rondepierre is Joabel, evil Philistine general, clearly revelling in his unmitigated villainous stage persona, a singer possessed of considerable lyricism and dangerous charisma, all wicked mascara, dash and darkness.
François-Olivier Jean is the Biblical Witch of Endor, La Pythonisse, more stock comic character than infernal medium, a bustling, burlesque conduit to the underworld, guide to Saul’s future, played with deliciously outrageous abandon. Demons raised, soothsayer duly summoned, bass Geoffroy Buffière sings the prophet Samuel’s growly ghost.
Conductor Gaétan Jarry leads the splendid, sprawling double Chœur et Orchestre Marguerite Louise with unstinting animation and unrivalled precision, rallying his massed forces with great tact and respect. David et Jonathas is positively awash with endless examples of Charpentier’s compositional brilliance, an endless array of luscious, purely instrumental interludes heralding the opening of all five acts and closing a good many of them. The quality of playing here is unrivalled. Choristers — confined to the shadows off stage — dispatch rolling wave after wave of surging contrapuntal harmony with superb fluidity and buoyancy.
A fine ensemble of excellent soloists — shepherds, captives, warriors — add notable vocal variety and visual appeal to Pynkoski’s otherwise already opulent mise en scène.
Sporadically produced, even in its day, David et Jonathas languished on the dusty shelves of history for almost two and a half centuries, until ultimately revived by Opéra de Lyon in 1981. This dazzling iteration from the Sun King’s gilded palace of Versailles, digitally preserved, is testament to the durability of the work, Chapentier’s timeless artistry, his enduring insights, his abiding humanity.
High Baroque meets high style. A glorious celebration of genius.
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Photo Marshall Pynkoski by Amati Bacciardi
In Conversation with Marshall Pynkoski
So, Novemeber 2022. The pandemic was still not quite over. Then, when all of us were still reeling, along comes David et Jonathas. The production, at least as far as the DVD from Château de Versailles Spectacles is concerned, was incredibly rich. So much of everything that we had been deprived of in lockdown suddenly seemed to be there. Live music. Live theatre. Ballet. Art. It was so sumptuous. So much to feast on all at once. Did you have that sense moving forward? Of making up for lost time?
It’s hard to say. I would say, no, not a conscious effort. But the opportunity to work on it in the year leading up to Versailles was a lifesaver. It was such a remarkable gift. To suddenly be preparing for the production was so positive. The performing arts are such an integral part of French life. It was all so intense. We were unfamiliar with the repertoire. It was the first time a staged production was taking place in the Royal Chapel. They were literally building a theatre within it. Not to mention having to get to know the artists and preparing the large ensemble that appeared on stage. It was a gigantic, thrilling jigsaw puzzle to put it all together. It really was something that took us out of the negativity of COVID and all of the fear that seemed to be part of that.
The production looks and sounds very strong, so packed with all of the elements that make great opera — love and tragedy and violence and even a little laughter, here and there. So emotional. So totally… Total. How do you walk away from an experience like that as a director after living with it at such close range? Or do you walk away from it?
You don’t. I think that sort thing is a lifechanging experience. We were fortunate that in a few months we went back and remounted it for the music festival in Potsdam so it allowed us all to breathe that air again. And then we knew after that we were going to be remounting it in Toronto. And then two weeks after we closed in Toronto we would go back to Versailles. So we all were able to realize that we didn’t need to say goodbye to the work. We didn’t need to say goodbye to each other. You know, I grew up with these stories. The entire time I was reading Samuel it felt like I was re-reading it all over again. These are Bronze Age stories, foundational stories. They are part of our DNA. It’s a universe you can’t explain. You’re just being moved through it.
It’s been something of a milestone, hasn’t it, staging David and Jonathan, not only for Versailles but for members of your creative team, as well.
Yes. When I heard that Laurent Brunner (Director, Château de Versailles Spectacles) was offering us a chance to direct and choreograph David and Jonathan in the Chapel, looking at the confines, for all of the money that was being spent and all of the extravagance, there were still huge issues. There are no wings. The new stage was not allowed to touch the walls or any of the existing structure. There are no crossovers. So those challenges became a catalyst and set all of us on a path where we were examining this piece of work as a great piece of theatre — not a piece of theatre that belonged in a proscenium arch, but a piece of theatre that required a very special treatment that was outside the traditional setting. There was tremendous inspiration knowing where we were, of course. The enormous emotion, the enormous turmoil that that chapel has been part of. You can’t not be deeply moved being in it.
There are many, many elements of this production that strike home incredibly forcefully. One of the most affecting, for me at least, is the anti-war messaging. That extremely powerful Act V tableau where the stage is littered with bodies — men and women, some soldiers, mostly the innocent… It all feels terrifyingly familiar. Almost like a scene from the evening news. I’m guessing the visual metaphor here was deliberate. You have never claimed to be working exclusively in the distant past.
No. Absolutely not. When you are dealing with examples of work that really are great masterpieces, one of the things that makes something a masterpiece is its timeless quality whether it’s a painting or a piece of sculpture, a play or an opera. It’s why I feel there’s just no need to try to find some way to give it relevance. The relevance will always be there because truly great works tap into the human heart and into the human psyche. That is something that remains unchanged. It’s almost impossible that this story would not speak to us with tremendous immediacy.
Your David and Jonathan here in Toronto is fast approaching. What can we expect? How much, if anything, of the Versailles production has made its way into the new show?
The choreography, the blocking — the production is the same production. We chose Koerner Hall purposefully because it was another huge, long, narrow space that leant itself to our needs. And also because it was not a proscenium theatre. Like the grand architectural setting that was created by Antoine Fontaine and son for Versailles, we have turned to Gerard (Gauci, Opera Atelier Resident Set Designer) to create huge architectural details that are going to ground that stage, not trying to turn into a theatre. We need the same sort of space as the Chapel — a very sumptuous, gorgeous environment – but just like Versailles there’s only one environment. We don’t need to change scenes any more than you need to change scenery to perform Shakespeare. Everything you need to know is told to you by the performers, their location, what’s happening, what has happened, what is about to happen. We’re not going to feature Christian Lacroix’s costumes, much as I love them. This is a Canadian endeavour and we want it to be primarily Canadian. I can’t wait for you to see it.
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Opera Atelier previews David and Jonathan Tuesday, March 25, 12 – 1 PM in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. Admission is free.
The production opens April 9, 7:30 PM at Koerner Hall, additional performances April 10 – 12 and April 13, 2:30PM.