Opera de Marseille: Le Roi d'Ys (Lalo/Foster) 18-V-2014

I had to be there!
After a Marathonian beginning of the week-end, first for the Rio-Paris concert in Marseille,  then  Paris -Bastille for Capuleti e i Montecchi for the second time, I dashed back home on a direct train Paris -Marseille on Sunday morning to catch the last rendition of Le Roi d'Ys I had not seen for more than 60 years at the same place with all the members of my family, here as well... but from the Gods with my beloved Mum. My father was singing Saint-Corentin from the inside of a statue. I remembered the paintings which unfolded as the action took place until the final scene, after the terrible flood of the medieval city because of the two villains 'will,  then the Saint's voice aroused to save the good people left ....I did not remember the flood scene but I remembered I was following the scene just as I would read a fairy tale, the costumes were recreating a medievel atmosphere and the two sisters were wearing pointed hats just as the fairies in my  fairy tale books. What I knew by heart because I had listened to them quite a lot at home were the Aubade aria my Mum used to sing with her pretty colaratura voice, and of course the last Saint-Corentin tune...
For me this matinée was a trip in my childhood memory once more... a happy one because recalling my parents' voices now is not a painful exercise... Inva Mula and Florian Laconi were charming and the orchestra gave their best under Lawrence Foster's direction: the symphonic ouverture was already a journey out of this world.(Wagnerian accents right at the opening bars, I did not know these similarities in my youth!).
 On the whole, I had a great time and rejoiced at the flood scene which had a poetical tinge with wonderful water effect under the lights. Several water walls were falling from the top of the stage, creating here at last a fairy -tale atmosphere, unreal like this Brittany  folk tale. I thought that Opera is the last place where sometimes, with the combination of the setting,  the  voices and the music, suddenly occurs this feeling of marvel we all have experienced from childhood.
This modern production did not bother me, in fact I enjoyed the last act a lot more than the rest, because I was fascinated by the flooding business....and so impatient like I was when waiting for the last baritone aria back in 1949...in November! this opera was part of the repertoire and it had been on the list in 1947 already. Now it is rather rare, but very charming and moving too with beautiful soprano and mezzo duet and heroïc baritone part for the Villain Karnac. Best part is the Ouverture...I liked Lawrence Foster's dynamics a lot.