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September 29, 2004
TT: Among the amphibians
I saw my first opera of the season on Tuesday, New York City Opera's revival of Mark Morris' production of Rameau's Platée, and except for a few loose musical screws this time around, what I said about the New York premiere in the New York Daily News still goes:I don't know about you, but I go to the opera to have a good time, and I've never had a better one than on Tuesday, when New York City Opera and the Mark Morris Dance Group teamed up to present the long-overdue New York premiere of Morris' madcap production of Jean-Philippe Rameau's "Platée." In the hands of Morris, costume designer Isaac Mizrahi and set designer Adrianne Lobel, this little-known French opera has become a "Lion King"-like festival of frivolity and poetry, full of matchless singing and dancing.
Composed in 1745 in honor of the marriage of King Louis XV's son, "Platée" is one of those tales in which the gods decide to amuse themselves by interfering with the lives of unsuspecting mortals--except that the "mortals" in question happen to be swamp creatures. This version is set in a seedy midtown bar and (no fooling) a giant terrarium, but it is faithful to the fanciful spirit of the original, in which flashy operatic arias and extended dance suites are woven seamlessly together into a baroque vaudeville.
The title role, sung and acted to perfection by character tenor Jean-Paul Fouchecourt, is a female frog of unrivaled ugliness, turned by Morris into a dumpy, lovesick Frog Queen whom Marx Brothers buffs will recognize as bearing a suspiciously close resemblance to Margaret Dumont. The gorgeously dressed dancers play animals of various sorts...
Though "Platée" is a costume show par excellence, it is also crammed full of inventive dancing, mostly comic but sometimes sweetly lyrical. Translated into English, it would run forever on Broadway...
You still have six more chances to see Platée, at this Saturday's matinee and on October 6, 8, 10 (also a matinee), 14, and 16. Don't wait until the last minute to get tickets--this show sells out.
(Warning: don't take your kids to this one unless they're fully briefed on the birds and the bees!)
Posted September 29, 2004 12:02 PM
