The paths of music history are inscrutable. If a work is played and performed over and over again for centuries, it is usually right. But why do other, equally good pieces then disappear so quietly? The music of Niccolò Piccinni is one such case. He lived from 1728 to 1800 and died in Paris, but was Italian. There was supposedly a dispute in France at the time between supporters of the opera reformer Christoph Willibald Gluck and those of Piccinni – roughly speaking, it was about what had priority: the truthfulness and credibility of the musical content (Gluck) or pure art, freed from the shackles of all-too-great reality (Piccinni).
A Piccinni piece was recently performed in Rheinsberg. Since Georg Quander took over the reins at the Chamber Opera, he has repeatedly put unjustly forgotten pieces on the repertoire and combined them to create interesting programs. This year, in the larger thematic context of the Trojan War, he contrasts Gluck’s “Iphighenie in Aulis” (premiered at Easter) with Piccinni’s “Dido, Queen of Carthage”, which was performed on Thursday for the first time since 1783. “Nobody knew the piece, neither the orchestra nor the soloists, we are all debutants tonight,” explains Quander before the premiere begins in the castle courtyard.
Lively, dance-like music
But the risk is worth it. As was the case last year with Paisiello’s “La Molinara”, a real surprise can be seen in Rheinsberg. Piccinni’s music is extremely lively and dance-like, he respects the French conventions of large ballet and choral tableaux, but also fuses them with realistically conceived characters and a strong focus on action – so that, the punch line of the story, the contrast between Gluckists and Piccinnists actually did not exist at all.
The dry, vibrato-free original sound of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin may take some getting used to in closed rooms, but it suits this open-air setting perfectly. The acoustics in the castle courtyard are interesting, and the sound of the horn sometimes reaches the ear slightly later. Concertmaster Bernhard Forck constantly encourages his ensemble to play confidently and with commitment.
The story of Dido and Aeneas has also been told many times in opera, for example by Purcell, Hasse, and Berlioz. Piccinnis’ librettist Jean-Francois Marmontel was one of his circle of supporters in Paris. He draws on Virgil’s epic, but zooms in on the story to the few days in which Aeneas decides to leave Dido and found Rome in Italy. His descendants will then, as we know, return a few centuries later and destroy Carthage. The gods play a major role in the play, with Aeneas justifying his actions with foresight and Jupiter’s will. The free, autonomous individual is still a phenomenon of the distant future.
Nóemi Bousque sings a sensational Dido
As is the case almost every year, great young singers are on stage in Rheinsberg. In his first major solo role as Aeneas, Chen Li fills the castle courtyard with his powerful, bright tenor and radiates great down-to-earthness, but appears somewhat distant and neutral towards the action. This contrasts strongly with the sensational Nóemi Bousquet as Dido, who makes the tragedy of this woman audible with a fiery but at the same time enormously nuanced passion in her voice. Third in the group is Yiwei Mao as the opposing Numidian king Iarbas, who threatens Carthage in a secondary conflict. His baritone is in no way inferior to Chen Li’s tenor in terms of beauty.
For cost reasons, there is no full-fledged production, and director Andreea Geletu has to make do with using a catwalk and the colonnades facing the lake. But everyone involved, including the choir singers from Vokalsystem Berlin, who love to play and sing, are so committed to the project that this shortcoming is not even noticed and once again enthusiastic cheers fill the night sky above Rheinsberg.