LA DISPUTE
Benoît Mernier (1964)
WORLD PREMIERE
Commissioned by La Monnaie
What could better fit the main theme of the season than La Dispute, the second and new opera by the Belgian composer Benoît Mernier, based upon Marivaux’s famous play and, as it was the case in 2007 with Frühlings Erwachen, his first lyric work, commissioned by La Monnaie?
For the composer, this new work is a true theatrical project, which has been globally thought of, where music is meant to serve forcefully the text. In a way, by alternating various themes, the form goes back to the 18th century. It is closer to the German Singspiel, with its alternate sung and spoken texts, than to the Wagnerian “durchcomponiert” style. The succession of forms is therefore determined by theatre itself, hence the importance of early work with the librettists. The diversity allows the composer to work on a very broad range of musical writing. But for all that the musical language is not a pastiche; it is deeply rooted in its time. The orchestration is light and allows great complicity between a small orchestra (30 musicians) and the stage. It is this complicity that favours a good comprehension of the French language, in a work that does not extend two hours.
La Dispute is drawn from the famous eponymous theatre play by Pierre Carlet de Marivaux, an 18th century French writer, playwright and journalist, whose one of the great literary merits was to intimately marry Italian folk theatre – la commedia dell’Arte – to the more formal French theatre. He exercised his critical sense on the habits and morals of his contemporaries and was unparalleled at mastering the theatrical ploy and manipulating the audience’s sentiments.
Ursel Herrmann and Joël Lauwers drew from it a libretto, which shows the modernity and timeliness of Marivaux. It is based on the original text of La Dispute which they had associated with other fragments of plays by the same author: La Réunion des Amours, L’Amour et la Vérité, La Fausse Suivante and Les Serments Indiscrets. Ursel Herrmann is also the producer, along with Karl-Ernst Herrmann and the assistance of Joël Lauwers.
The Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie will be lead by the Belgian conductor Patrick Davin, who has been regularly invited by our house for the last 10 years, where he has conducted some of the great world premieres.
For this world premiere we find the French Baritone Stéphane Degout in the role of Le Prince and the French mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac in Hermiane. This will be the début at La Monnaie for the four promising young French who embody the “children of the experiment”: the soprano Julie Mathevet is Eglé, the mezzo-soprano Albane Carrère incarnates Adine, the tenor Cyrille Dubois sings Azor and the baritone Guillaume Andrieux is Mesrin.
The Belgian actress Katelijne Verbeke and the French counter-tenor Dominique Visse will perform the two double roles of Cupidon & Mesrou and Amour & Carise.
CAST |
Conductor Patrick Davin
Directors Karl-Ernst & Ursel Herrmann
Assistant Director Joël Lauwers
Stage Setting, Costumes and lighting Karl-Ernst Herrmann
Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie
The Prince Stéphane Degout
Hermiane Stéphanie d’Oustrac
Eglé Julie Mathevet
Adine Albane Carrère
Azor Cyrille Dubois
Mesrin Guillaume Andrieux
Amour & Carise Dominique Visse
Cupidon & Mesrou Katelijne Verbeke
