Ravel: L'Enfant Et Les Sortileges & L'Heure Espagnole / Maurice Sendak, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
by Frank Corsaro

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DVD Reviews of Ravel: L'Enfant Et Les Sortileges & L'Heure Espagnole / Maurice Sendak, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

DVD Review: Les Deux Maurice ...
Summary: 5 Stars

Description of Ravel: L'Enfant Et Les Sortileges & L'Heure Espagnole / Maurice Sendak, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Music By Maurice Ravel
Designs By Maurice Sendak
Directed By Frank Corsaro
Choreographer: Jenny Weston

The Child: Cynthia Buchan
His Mother: Fiona Kimm
The Tom Cat: Malcolm Walker
The Armchair: François Loup
The Louis XV Chair: Hyacinth Nicholls
The Grandfather Clock: Malcolm Walker
The Tea Pot: Thierry Dran
The Chinese Cup: Louise Winter
The Fire: Nan Christie
A Shepherd: Jady Pearl
A Shepherdess: Carol Smith
The Princess: Harolyn Blackwell
The Little Old Man: Thierry Dran
The Cat: Fiona Kimm
A Tree: François Loup

The London Philharmonic< BR>Conductor: Simon Rattle

The child (aged six or seven) refuses to do his homework, and sticks his tongue out at his mother, who punishes him with dry bread and tea without sugar, and locks him in until suppertime.

Left alone, the Child throws a tantrum, tormenting his pet squirrel and the cat, stirring up the fire, and demolishing anything within reach crockery, wallpaper, his books, the clock. Just as he is feeling mighty pleased with himself, his true punishment begins: all the objects of his mistreatment and destructive frenzy come alive, one by one, to torment him. First the armchair withdraws its support, complaining of the boy's cruel heels , and brings all the furniture out on strike. Then the clock protests that he has broken its mechanism, and hides its face in shame at no longer being able to tell the time.

The black teapot and china cup utter strange threats at him, each in its own peculiar language. The fire announces that it warms only good people, but burns the wicked. The shepherds and shepherdesses depicted on the torn wallpaper step down and lament the destruction of their two-dimensional world; no longer will their blue dog peacefully keep watch over pink lambs in fields of mauve. As the Child weeps in shame, his beloved Fairy Princess rises from her story-book, declaring that she is doomed: he might have grown up to be her handsome prince, but he has torn the book and the end of the story is lost forever. Heartbroken, he searches among the torn pages for the end of the fairy-tale, but finds only his arithmetic lessons, which come to life in a ronde folle of dancing numbers and impossible sums which make his head spin....

L Heure Espagnole

Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Music By Maurice Ravel
Designs by Maurice Sendak

Lighting Designer: Robert Ornbo
Choreographer: Jenny Weston
Associate Director: Stephen Lawless
Director: Frank Corsaro
Concepcion: Anna Steiger
Ramiro: François Le Roux
Torquemada: Rémy Corazza
Gonzalve: Thierry Dran
Don Inigo Gomez: François Loup

The London Philharmonic
Conductor: Sian Edwards

Every Thursday at the same time, the clockmaker Torquemada has an appointment to wind and regulate the town clocks, thus leaving his wife alone in the house for an hour...

Torquemada sits in his workshop, surrounded by chiming clocks and automata. Ramiro, a muleteer, brings in his watch for repair; his mules provide the local postal service, and it is imperative that they run on time. His watch once saved an uncle by stopping a charging bull in the arena, he explains, but now it has itself stopped.

Torquemada s wife, Concepcion, reminds him that it is Thursday, and time for his weekly appointment with the municipal clocks. Now Concepcion is free to entertain her lover, Gonzalve, an aesthetic poet ; but she becomes increasingly impatient with his poetical outpourings as her precious hour ticks away. Concepcion s busy afternoon is further complicated by the arrival of Don Inigo Gomez, a rich banker, who confesses to having used his influence to secure Torquemada s regular Thursday appointment so that he could be sure of finding her alone. ....

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