Monteverdi, La selva morale (selections)

Gaelle Mechaly, substitute for Sophie Karthaueser, Jean-Paul Bonneville,
Ryland Angel, Iain Paton, Joseph Cornwall, Bertrand Chuberre, Clive Bayley

Director William Christie

Les Arts Florissants

This was one of those evenings. I had a choice between two alluring
anachronisms: Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort doing Purcell's Fairy
Queen in the high mediaeval Guildhall, or Les Arts Florissants doing
Monteverdi in the Wren-built chapel of the Royal Naval College at
Greenwich. The clincher was that the Guildhall performance (part of the
City of London Festival) was sold out weeks ago, and there were plenty of
seats in Greenwich (part of the Docklands Festival). The problem was
probably the lack of advertising for the Docklands events, since Les Arts
Florissants reliably deliver pure delight.

Monteverdi's Selva morale might not at first sight look too promising for
them, though. It's a pious counterpart to the Eighth Book of madrigals, a
collection of works from all periods of Monteverdi's life, made in his old
age as a kind of summing up of his career. I think the title, which means
literally "the moral wood", is an allusion to the Silvae of Statius, an
elaborately organized but poetically negligible set of poetry books by the
Roman poet who was regarded in the Renaissance as a secret Christian, and
who replaces Virgil as Dante's guide to heaven. (The word silva/selva
refers to its Greek equivalent, which can mean "material" as well as
trees.)

Monteverdi's Selva is a moral and religious translation both of the
conventions of a pagan poetry book and of his own secular works. It keeps
the courtly obsequiousness of its Roman model, notably in its implicit
praise of Venice as the ideal Christian state and of the Doge as God's
chosen, whose enemies are going to be well smitten. (Monteverdi's use of
the Psalms in this context is strikingly parallel to Handel's use of the
Israelites in his oratorios.) But it also keeps all the exuberance and
drama of its secular sources and models, which is where Les Arts
Florissants come in.

Three of the pieces performed tonight were moralizing madrigals (Chi vol
che m'innanomormi, O chieci chieci and E questa vita un lampo), neatly
done, if perhaps too cheerfully for their memento mori message. But several
other psalm settings emphasize the personal celebratory origin of the text.
The singers made the comparatively familiar Beatur vir I into an utterly
euphoric rondo in which the happiness of the good man dances over the
misery of his ungodly enemies.

Clive Bayley sang a slightly Russian-sounding Psalm 17 (Praise the Lord ye
nations) that would have gone down well at a party, and (I think)  Ryland
Angel, Joseph Cornwall and Bertrand Chuberre sang Salve regina as if it
were a courtly lover's serenade, from which it might have been adapted.

Sophie Karthaueser was unable to perform, and I managed to lose the slip
with the name of her substitute. She did a pretty good job in general, and
chirped delightfully in another rondo psalm-setting, Psalm 111 (I will give
thanks to the Lord).

The outstanding performance, and the most interesting piece, was Gaelle
Mechaly's Lamento della Madonna, an adaptation of Ariadne's Lament sung by
Mary the mother of Jesus after his death, using some of the language of the
Song of Solomon. In its evocation of a woman pushed to extremes by a
personal and religious crisis, you could see this as a musical equivalent
of Bernini's Saints Teresa and Catherine. Mechaly is very elegant and
lady-like in appearance, and it was amazing to see her get demented. She
gave a stunning performance, pushing the expressiveness of the music
further all the time and going slightly off-pitch at the height of Mary's
despair.

The small ensemble -- two violins, viola, cello, bass, theorbo and William
Christie on harpsichord and organ -- matched the style and lightness of the
singing perfectly.