Basil Twist in Paris: When Puppets Meet Baroque Opera

PARIS — The place can American artists direct opera in the mean time? For the puppetry prodigy Basil Twist, the reply was France.

On the Opéra Comique in Paris, Twist has been busy readying a brand new staging of Jean-Joseph de Mondonville’s “Titon et l’Aurore,” an 18th-century Baroque opera. Though the French authorities’s present pandemic pointers have pressured all theaters to shut to audiences, “Titon et l’Aurore” is about to have a digital premiere on Tuesday on the streaming platform Medici TV, and will likely be free to observe for 3 months.

“Titon et l’Aurore” is a three-act pastoral fantasy a couple of shepherd, Titon, who’s in love with Aurora, the goddess of sunshine. Different gods and goddesses strive jealously to intervene, however the couple triumphs. Whereas the unique premiere, in 1753, was thought of successful for its French composer at a time of intense rivalry between the French and Italian operatic traditions, it has seldom been revived.

On the Opéra Comique, “Titon et l’Aurore” will likely be performed by the American-born William Christie, who has championed the work of Mondonville for a number of a long time along with his ensemble, Les Arts Florissants.

Twist, 51, has damaged new floor for musical puppetry along with his imaginative, poetic designs. The worldwide success of his 1998 underwater puppet present, “Symphonie Fantastique,” led him to start the Dream Music Puppetry program on the Right here Arts Heart in New York. His work has spanned opera, ballet and Broadway reveals like “Charlie and the Chocolate Manufacturing facility,” in addition to pure puppetry productions set to orchestral music, like “Petrushka” and “Ceremony of Spring.”

And Twist’s first look as a director in France was a very long time coming.

He stays the one American to have graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette, a famend puppetry college primarily based in Charleville-Mézières, in japanese France. In 2011, Twist was the designer and affiliate director for a Comédie-Française manufacturing of “A Streetcar Named Want,” directed by Lee Breuer, who died this month. (Twist is dedicating “Titon et l’Aurore” to Breuer, a significant affect and mentor.)

A number of days earlier than the livestream of “Titon et l’Aurore,” Twist spoke within the lobby of the Opéra Comique in Paris. The dialog has been edited for readability and size.

How did you strategy the mythological characters of “Titon et l’Aurore”?

I’m a special sort of director: I wish to use my craft to make the singers greater, extra fantastical. The characters aren’t puppets right here, however the singers have puppeteers — most of them from my former college in France — who attend to them, a bit posse who’s following them round. Aeolus is the god of wind, for example, so there may be a number of silk and motion round him. Pales is the goddess of livestock and shepherds, so I had this concept of a costume that’s immense and made from sheep. It’s like they’re a part of her physique.

What made you say sure to a Baroque opera?

I’d been in dialog with the Opéra Comique for some years, after which it fell away whereas that they had renovations. Once they reached out, in January of final 12 months, they weren’t certain whether or not it might be this Mondonville piece or a double invoice of Rameau. But it surely was going to be with William Christie, so I mentioned sure instantly.

William Christie is thought to be a demanding conductor …

I met him on the day all the things shut down in New York, final March. I bear in mind being nervous, however he was very heat. I used to be involved that he could be a bit robust on issues like noise onstage. He hasn’t but — I feel I used to be apprehensive sufficient about it that I made certain it didn’t trigger issues.

He’s gotten extra intense within the days earlier than the premiere. I used to be happy to see that as a result of I truly need the rigor, and I had steeled myself towards it.

What was your expertise of the early days of the pandemic?

I truly had a extremely severe damage final February. I lower my arm actually badly, and it was very scary for me as a puppeteer. So I used to be already in my very own type of lockdown, my very own existential well being disaster. Like several freelance artist, I used to be afraid to cancel tasks that I had — I want the work.

After which all the things was canceled, or postponed. It allowed me to heal, so it was fairly miraculous. I’m significantly better, regardless that I’m nonetheless feeling some results.

You labored on “Titon et l’Aurore” with a crew of technicians in an empty New York theater final summer time. What was the ambiance like?

I’ve labored on and off on the Abrons Arts Heart previously, and so they had no programming. Folks have been nonetheless involved to be inside an area collectively. I introduced individuals in and we slowly discovered the right way to work in these circumstances.

I used to be actually conscious of not pushing them an excessive amount of. I’ve a behavior of pushing individuals past their consolation stage, as a result of I’m all the time asking them to do one thing uncommon, whether or not it’s singers or dancers.

Have puppets taken on a brand new which means this 12 months, whereas everybody was scared to work with different human beings?

Probably not, in the end, since you’re nonetheless working collectively. Puppets contain individuals — in truth, the way in which I do it, they contain a lot of individuals, who typically must be actually shut collectively.

How have you ever discovered the temper within the French arts world, in comparison with the US?

The truth in the US is so totally different from France: All people’s unemployed, nobody has something to do. We couldn’t imagine that the Opéra Comique began doing performances in June. It’s exhausting to place myself within the sneakers of the French individuals who say, ‘That is actually dangerous, the cultural sector has closed, and we don’t know when it’s going to open.’ Within the U.S., we’ve been closed since March. It’s simply completely unimaginable that we’re placing on an opera right here.

A movie model of “Symphonie Fantastique” premiered in 2019, and now “Titon et l’Aurore” will likely be streamed. How do you are feeling about your work being filmed?

I’m not an professional for movie, so I simply must belief another person. I feel the excellence with puppetry for the stage is that there’s a complicity with the dwell viewers. They’re invited to make use of their imaginations, they will see the puppeteers at work. In movie, we’re used to particular results being excellent, so we don’t get that very same feeling of the humanity behind it.

What do you hope individuals will take away from “Titon et l’Aurore”?

The present is about love. It’s not particularly heavy or edgy or exhausting: There’s a number of pleasure, a number of shade and quite simple stagecraft. And I hope that individuals take that. I need them to really feel the nice fortune that all of us have to have the ability to create collectively.