LAKMÉ (Delibes) Liège 2022 Jodie Devos, Philippe Talbot, Lionel Lhote
In this video
LAKMÉ by Delibes
Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, Belgium
2022
CAST
Jodie Devos — Lakmé
Philippe Talbot — Gérald
Lionel Lhote — Nilakantha
Pierre Doyen — Frédéric
Marion Lebègue — Mallika
Julie Mossay — Ellen
Caroline de Mahieu — Rose
Sarah Laulan — Mistress Bentson
Pierre Romainville — Hadji
Benoît Delvaux — Le Kouravar
Xavier Petithan — Chinese merchant
Benoît Scheuren — Fortune teller
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Conductor: Frédéric Chaslin
Orchestra of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège
Chorus of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège
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Stage Director: Davide Garattini Raimondi
Stage Designer: Paolo Vitale
Costume Designer: Giada Masi
Lighting Designer: Paolo Vitale
Choreographer: Barbara Palumbo
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Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille.
The score, written from 1881 to 1882, was first performed on 14 April 1883 by the Opéra-Comique at the (second) Salle Favart in Paris, with stage decorations designed by Auguste Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon (act 1), Eugène Carpezat and (Joseph-) Antoine Lavastre (act 2), and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre (act 3). Set in British India in the mid-19th century, Lakmé is based on Théodore Pavie’s story “Les babouches du Brahmane” (1849) and the novel Le Mariage de Loti (1880) by Pierre Loti. Gondinet proposed it as a vehicle for the American soprano Marie van Zandt.
The opera includes the popular “Flower Duet” (“Sous le dôme épais”) for a soprano and mezzo-soprano, performed in act 1 by Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika. The name Lakmé is the French rendition of Sanskrit Lakshmi, the name of the Hindu Goddess of Wealth. The opera’s most famous aria is the “Bell Song” (“L’Air des clochettes”) in act 2.
Lakmé combines many orientalist aspects that were popular at the time: an exotic location, similar to other French operas of the period, such as Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles and Massenet’s Le roi de Lahore, a fanatical priest, mysterious Hindu rituals, and “the novelty of exotically colonial English people”.
Synopsis
Place: India Time: Late nineteenth century, during the British Raj.
Act 1
The Hindus go to perform their rites in a sacred Brahmin temple under the high priest, Nilakantha. Nilakantha’s daughter Lakmé, and her servant Mallika, are left behind and go down to the river to gather flowers where they sing together the “Flower Duet”. As they approach the water at the river bank, Lakmé removes her jewellery and places it on a bench. Two British officers, Frédéric and Gérald (Delibes uses Frenchified versions of the then common English names Frederick and Gerald), arrive nearby on a picnic with two British girls and their governess. The British girls see the jewellery and, impressed with it, request sketches of it; Gérald volunteers to stay and make sketches of the jewellery. He spots Lakmé and Mallika returning and hides. Mallika leaves Lakmé for a while; while alone Lakmé sees Gérald and, frightened by the foreigner’s incursion, cries out for help. However, simultaneously, she is also intrigued by him and so she sends away those who had responded to her call for help when they come to her aid. Lakmé and Gérald begin to fall in love with each other. Nilakantha returns and learns of the British officer’s trespassing, vowing revenge on him for what he assumes to be an affront to Lakmé’s honour.
Act 2
At a busy bazaar, Nilakantha forces Lakmé to sing (the “Bell Song”) in order to lure the trespasser into identifying himself. When Gérald steps forward, Lakmé faints, thus giving him away. Nilakantha stabs Gérald, wounding him. Lakmé takes Gérald to a secret hideout in the forest, where she lovingly nurses him back to health.
Act 3
In the forest, Lakmé and Gérald hear singing in the distance. Gérald is frightened, but Lakme tells him that the singers are a group of lovers that seek out the water of a magical spring. When drunk, the water grants eternal love to the couple. While Lakmé fetches water that will confirm the vows of the lovers, Fréderic, Gérald’s fellow British officer, appears and reminds him of his military duty to his regiment. Gérald sadly accepts that his colleague is correct. After Lakmé returns, she senses the change in Gérald and realises that she has lost him. Rather than live with dishonor, she tears a leaf from a poisonous datura tree and bites into it. She tells Gérald what she has just done and they drink the water together. Nilakantha finds their hut and enters as Lakmé is dying. She tells her father that she and Gérald drank from the magical spring. In that instant, she dies.
Quoted from Wikipedia