Opera Director & Designer

Circé

Henri Desmarest (1661-1741)

First performed in 1694 at the Paris Opera, Henry Desmarest’s Circé features a libretto by renowned poet Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Saintonge.  Circé tells the story of the sorceress Circe and Odysseus. Gilbert Blin staged this Circé production for the Boston Early Music Festival. He also signed for the set design.

Henri Desmarest
Amanda Forsythe, Éolie. Aaron Sheehan, Ulisse. Mireille Lebel, Minerve. Boston Early Music Festival, photo Kathy Wittman.

Boston Early Music Festival

NEC's Jordan Hall, Boston

June 4, 2023

CD available via BEMF website

Artists

Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors

Gilbert Blin, Stage Director & Set Designer

Robert Mealy, Orchestra Director

Melinda Sullivan, Dance Director

Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière, Choreographer

Pierre-François Dollé, Choreographer

Jérôme Kaplan, Costume Designer

Alexander McCargar,  Associate Scenic Designer

Kelly Martin, Light Designer 

About Circé

Madame de Saintonge, a literary career

Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Beaucourt (1650–1718), known in literature under her married name of Madame de Saintonge, inherited her taste for letters from her learned mother. Madame de Saintonge started her literary career by creating two librettos for Henry Desmarest, each centered on a strong female figure: Didon in 1693, and the following year, Circé, both produced by the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opera).

[Madame de Saintonge Livret de Circé, collection Gilbert Blin

 

A unique voice and original approach

In 1696, Saintonge published an Histoire secrète de Dom Antoine, Roy de Portugal, based on the archives of her Portuguese family. The same year, a collection of Poésies galantes offered over one hundred of her works. This book was reissued in 1714 with additional material and showed the great variety of her production as an author. Her rich literary work does not appear to have been inspired by an especially eventful or unusual personal life. As the Histoire littéraire des Femmes Françoises noted in 1769: “She was born in Paris in 1650, and died there on March 24, 1718, aged sixty-eight. We have spoken of her charms and her talents: but we have not been told of any peculiarities of her life.” Nevertheless, Madame de Saintonge is known today for her unique voice and original approach to the various genres in which she worked. For French opera after the deaths of Lully and Quinault, she contributed to renew the genre by establishing a new relationship between the actions of her main characters and their theatrical environment, offering multiple opportunities for musical developments and stage effects. This approach is exemplified by Madame de Saintonge’s libretto for Circé.

 

Read the entire research article about Circé

Version française de l’article publié sur le site web du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles ⇒

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