Photo: Laurent Guizar
Suzanne Daumann
At the Opéra de Rennes, there is no fear of
unusual works or partners or publics.
And so tonight we could attend an interpretation of Xenakis’ Oresteïa by
the Atelier XXème of the local conservatory, along with the Choeur Prolatio and
the Maitrise de Bretagne, and the baritone Dyonisios Sourbis, conducted by
Sylvain Blassel. Students from the university Rennes 2 were filming the event,
and so we found ourselves among a young crowd of enthusiasts. They had every right to be excited: the work is
fascinating. The story has come to us from antique Greece and is sung in
ancient Greek. Its hero is Orest, who finds himself involved in a sequence of
violence and vengeance: in order to avenge his father, whom his mother had
killed to avenge their daughter whom he had sacrificed to the Gods, he kills
his mother and her lover, then finds himself pursued by the Erinyes, furious
spirits that we easily identify as the manifestations of feelings of guilt.
Goddess Athena then steps in and, proclaiming a kind of justice, based on the
state and its laws, transforms the Erinyes into the benevolent Eumenides. It’s a timeless story, this fight between the
spirit of vengeance and the voice of reason. Timeless is also Xenakis’ music,
with its rhythm-based dramaturgy, intellectual, yet archaic and exciting, and
its Sprechgesang. The interpreters were quite up to the
challenge. The Atelier XXème under Sylvain Blassel were nuanced and just, as
were the choirs Prolatio and the Maitrise de Bretagne. Baritone Dionysios
Sourbis amazed with his two long interventions, when he passed effortlessly
from his usual range to the most impressive falsetto. Un unusual musical event, that left us refreshed
and surprised. Bravi tutti!
