Special correspondent in Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône)
The actors of the Comédie-Française directed by Thomas Ostermeier in Aix-en-Provence? That’s it, you say to yourself, the music critic of Le Figaro has lost his bearings and gone to Avignon! No way. For the opening of the 75th Festival d’Aix, its director, Pierre Audi, knows very well that the notion of a festival presupposes an element of surprise, of the unknown: we want to see in it what a lyric theater open all year round does not not offer you. And it works, judging by the enthusiastic reception of a first-class audience that we have known to be more formal. However, one cannot say that it had been caressed in the direction of the hair, so much The Threepenny Opera, since it is about that, preserves, almost a century after its creation, its subversive potential: “‘Grill first, then morality,’ no romanticism!
For the “piece with music” by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, we made strong choices. First, the return to the original version of 1928, more timeless than the following ones because it lacks the allusions to Nazism that the playwright will add to it. Then, the decision to entrust it to actors, in accordance with the intentions of the authors but always delicate when it comes to the sung parts. Finally, the option of the French language, perilous in the case of such a biting text.
Each of these challenges was successfully met. The staging captures all the ambiguity of Brecht’s theater, between realism and didacticism. Thus, the actors regularly escape to the front of the stage to address the room using microphones and take the public to witness. The title and place of each scene are projected in luminous letters, decorative elements and videos reminiscent of the constructivist collages of the 1920s. Everything is theater in this room where the characters spend their time putting themselves on stage.
Alexandre Pateau’s translation is a considerable contribution to Brechtian theater in France. We have had enough experience of translations that flatten the text not to be struck by its rhythm, its insolence, its modernity of yesterday and today. Above all, it was designed to be said and sung, not to be read, and that changes everything.
There remains the challenge of rhythm, the alternation of spoken and sung always creating an additional difficulty. Brecht and Weill wanted this choppy rhythm so as not to settle into the comfort of the illusion, but it is essential that everything flow together without downtime. Bet held during the first two thirds. On the evening of the premiere, which began at 10 p.m. to accommodate nightfall in the courtyard of the Archdiocese, we felt a downturn at the stroke of midnight. We applaud the principle of giving the play without intermission, but we will have to tighten the bolts so that the energy does not fall.
Rhythm is also the responsibility of the conductor, more crucial than ever when it comes to artists who are not accustomed to the rigor of a score, nor to the margin of freedom it leaves you. Maxime Pascal is the man for the job, with the ten musicians of Le Balcon in an arrangement that exposes the sharp angles of this grating composition. In Florent Derex’s sound system, close to the ideal for the continuum between singing and speaking, the conductor makes Weill’s music a counterpoint to the words: each time the text makes you smile with its caustic side, the music extends it with a tragic dimension.
But the real stars of this show are the actors of the Comédie-Française, whose considerable work we measure. If the Mackie of the very young Birane Ba seemed to us paralyzed by stage fright on the evening of the first, all are breathtaking. The Peachum couple of Véronique Vella and Christian Hecq is irresistible with their uninhibited cynicism, Marie Oppert’s Polly puts her training as an opera singer to good use without pulling the cover, Elsa Lepoivre conveys all the hoarse resignation of the prostitute Jenny, the partners giving to their heart’s content in their comedic interludes. But beware: when you laugh at The Threepenny Opera, you laugh out loud, and the performers did not have to solicit the text to bring out its current resonances. So when Peachum threatens the police to send his army of beggars to disrupt the Queen’s coronation… one to redeem the other and that it is a very disenchanted vision of humanity that this indestructible piece conveys.
Archbishop’s Theater until July 24. broadcast on france musique on july 10 and on arte concert on july 12.
