L'enfant et les sortilèges

L'enfant et les sortilèges
Opera by Maurice Ravel
Marie-Thérèse Gauley in the title role, in 1926
Librettist	Colette
Language	French
Premiere	21 March 1925 (1925-03-21) Monte Carlo Opera

L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties (The Child and the Spells: A Lyric Fantasy in Two Parts) is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being L'heure espagnole. Written from 1917 to 1925, L'enfant et les sortilèges was first performed in Monte Carlo in 1925 conducted by Victor de Sabata.

After being offered the opportunity to write a musical work, Colette wrote the text in eight days. Several composers had proposed to Colette that she write to music, but she was only excited by the prospect of Ravel.

Composition history

During World War I, the Opéra de Paris director Jacques Rouché asked Colette, whom he met at one of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux's salons, to provide the text for a fairy ballet. Colette originally wrote the story under the title Divertissements pour ma fille. After Colette chose Ravel to set the text to music, a copy was sent to him in 1916 while he was still serving in the war; however, the mailed script was lost. In 1917, Ravel finally received a copy and agreed to compose the score, humorously replying to Colette, "I would like to compose this, but I have no daughter." It was eventually agreed that the composition would be more of an operetta, but retain the ballet dance elements. Colette accordingly revised the text and developed a libretto.

Ravel stopped composition of the work in the spring of 1920, suffering from physical exhaustion and poor health. In the next few years he was compelled to complete the work by Raoul Gunsbourg, director of the Monte Carlo Opera, who had insisted Ravel write a sequel to L'Heure espagnole. By this time Ravel had become newly inspired by the stage presentations of American musicals and revues by composers such as George Gershwin. Ravel's work on the composition began to incorporate the musical style of these productions.

By early 1925 he had finally completed it. Colette, who had believed that the work would never be completed, expressed her extreme pleasure, believing that her modest writing had been raised beyond its initial scope. Now officially under the title of L'enfant et les sortilèges, the first performance took place on 21 March 1925 in Monte Carlo, conducted by Victor de Sabata, with ballet sequences choreographed by George Balanchine. Ravel said of the premiere production:

Our work requires an extraordinary production: the roles are numerous, and the phantasmagoria is constant. Following the principles of American operetta, dancing is continually and intimately intermingled with the action. Now the Monte Carlo Opera possesses a wonderful troupe of Russian dancers, marvelously directed by a prodigious ballet master, M. Balanchine. ... And let's not forget an essential element, the orchestra.

Performance history

Marie-Thérèse Gauley sang the part of the child at both the premiere in Monte-Carlo and the first performance at the Opéra-Comique on 1 February 1926. The original cast also included Henri Fabert as Vieillard Arithmétique, Warnerey as the clock and cat, while at the Opéra-Comique, conducted by Albert Wolff and with choreography by Louise Virard, the cast included Germaine Féraldy, Mathilde Calvet, Madeleine Sibille, Roger Bourdin, René Hérent and Louis Guenot.

The opera was then seen in Prague (17 February 1927), Leipzig (6 May 1927) and Vienna (14 March 1929). The US premiere was given on 19 September 1930 by the San Francisco Opera. The Canadian premiere of the work was a film version made by CBC Television in 1950 with conductor Wilfrid Pelletier. It was not until 3 December 1958 that the opera was given its UK premiere, in the Town Hall in Oxford.

An innovative production was filmed during the time of the Covid 19 epidemic, by Vopera20.com, founded to address the issues raised by the pandemic for the artistic community. The production has received extensive praise for its artistry and creativity. Following a period of free availability on Youtube.com (through Dec. 16, 2020), the opera video was moved to https://www.marquee.tv/ for distribution.

Roles

The score specifies that fire / the princess / nightingale must be sung by the same singer, and the little old man and frog by the same singer. It is also specified that the following groups or pairs of roles can be sung by the same singer: mother / china cup / dragonfly; the bergère / owl; the female cat / the squirrel; the male cat / grandfather clock; the armchair / tree.

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 21 March 1925 (Conductor: Victor de Sabata)
L'enfant, the child	mezzo-soprano	Marie-Thérèse Gauley
Part one
Maman, the mother represented by a huge skirt	contralto	Orsoni
Le fauteuil	bass	Julien Lafont
La bergère Louis XV	soprano	Narsay
L'horloge comtoise, a clock broken by the child	baritone	Edmond Warnéry
La théière, Wedgwood teapot	tenor	Gaston Dubois
La tasse chinoise, a broken china cup	mezzo-contralto	Lucy
Le feu, the fire in the fireplace	coloratura soprano	Mathilde
La princesse, the princess torn out of a storybook	coloratura soprano	Bilhon
Une pastourelle	soprano	Chorina
Un pâtre	contralto
Le petit vieillard, the little old man (representing the torn arithmetic book)	tenor	Henri Fabert
Le chat	baritone	Chorina
La chatte	mezzo-soprano	Albertine Dubois-Lauger
Part two
La chouette	soprano
L'arbre, a tree	bass	Vladimir Baidaroff
La libellule, a dragonfly	mezzo-soprano	Viardot
Le rossignol, a nightingale	coloratura soprano	Foliguet
La chauve-souris, widower bat	soprano	Lacroix
L'écureuil, a squirrel	mezzo-soprano	Lecourt
La rainette, the tree frog	tenor	Sollières
Chorus: Le banc, le canapé, le pouf, la chaise de paille (children's chorus); Pâtres and pastoures (shepherds and shepherdesses - torn figures from the decorative wallpaper), Les chiffres (spiteful little numbers that assist the old man in tormenting the child (children's chorus)); trees, animals.

Synopsis

The two scenes in the Paris première (1926)

Place: An old-fashioned Normandy country home

Part 1

This is the story of a rude child who is reprimanded by the objects in his room, which he has been destroying. After being scolded by his mother in the beginning of the opera, the child throws a tantrum, destroying the room around him and harming the animals nearby. He is then surprised to find that the unhappy objects in his room come to life. The furniture and decorations begin to talk; even his homework takes shape as it becomes an old man and a chorus of numbers. They all sing out the pain and misery that the child inflicts on them and their wishes to punish him for his misdeeds.

Part 2

The bedroom becomes a garden filled with singing animals and plants which have been tortured by the child. The child attempts to make friends with the animals and plants, but they shun him because of the injuries he did to them earlier, before they could talk. They leave him aside, and in his loneliness, he eventually cries out "Maman". At this, the animals turn on him and attack him in an act of vengeance, but they wind up jostling among each other as the child is tossed aside. At the culmination, a squirrel is hurt, which causes the other animals to stop fighting. The child bandages the squirrel's wound and collapses exhausted. Seeing this act of kindness, the animals have a change of heart toward the child, and decide to try to help him home. They mimic the cry of "Maman", carry the child back to his house, and sing in praise of the child. The opera ends with the child singing "Maman", as he greets his mother, in the very last bar of the score.

Numbers

• "J'ai pas envie de faire ma page!" (I don't want to finish my homework!) - The Child
• "Bébé a été sage?" (Has my baby been good?) - Mother
• "Ça m'est égal!" (I don't care!) - The Child
• "Votre serviteur humble, Bergère" (Your humble servant, Bergère) - Bergère and Fauteuil
• "Ding, ding, ding, ding" - The Clock
• "How's your mug?" - The Teapot
• "Keng-ça-fou, mah-jong" - The Chinese Cup
• "Oh! Ma belle tasse chinoise!" (Ah! My beautiful Chinese Cup!) - The Child
• "Arrière ! Je réchauffe les bons" (Stand back! I warm the righteous) - The Fire
• "Adieu, Pastourelles!" (Farewell shepherdesses!) - Shepherds and Shepherdesses
• "Ah! C'est elle! C'est elle!" (Ah! It's her! It's her!) - The Child and the Princess
• "Toi, le coeur de la rose" (You, the heart of the rose) - The Child
• "Deux robinets coulent dans un réservoir!" (Two water faucets run into a reservoir!) - The Little Old Man and Numbers
• "Oh! Ma tête!" (Oh! My head!) - The Child

• "Duo miaulé" (Meowed duet) - The Cats
• "Musique d'insectes, de rainettes, etc." (Music of insects and frogs) - Chorus of the Animals
• "Ah! Quelle joie de te retrouver, Jardin!" (Ah! What joy to have found you again, Garden!) - The Child
• "Nos Blessures!" (Our wounds!) - The Trees
• "Où es tu, je te cherche..." (Where are you? I'm looking for you...) The Dragonfly
• "Ronde des chauves-souris": 'Rends-la moi... Tsk, Tsk..." (Give her back! My companion the Bat!) The Bat
• "Danse des rainettes" (Dance of the Frogs)
• "Sauve-toi, sotte! Et la cage? La cage?" (Save yourself, dummy! And the Cage? The Cage?) - The Squirrel
• "Ah ! C'est l'enfant au couteau!" (Ah! It is the child with the knife!) - Ensemble
• "Il a pansé la plaie..." (He has bandaged the wound) - Ensemble
• "Il est bon, l'enfant, il est sage" (He is good, the child, he is good) - Ensemble

Instrumentation

Woodwind: 2 flutes, piccolo (alternating third flute), slide whistle (flûte à coulisse), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 1 E-flat clarinet, 1 bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon

Brass: 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba

Percussion: timpani, xylophone, bass drum, triangle, whip, cymbals, tam-tam, rachet, cheese grater (scraped with a triangle beater), wood block, wind machine, crotales, snare drum

Keyboards: celesta, piano (or luthéal),

Strings: harp, strings

Music

The opera calls for a large orchestra, a mixed chorus of adults, a chorus of children and eight soloists, most of whom individually play a number of characters. The scale of the cast and fantastic setting make the opera difficult to stage, which helps to explain why the work is not performed often. Ravel uses various subtle leitmotifs throughout the work, and there is considerable virtuosity in the instrumental writing. Yet the orchestra plays a mostly secondary role to the sung melodies: Ravel explained that he was following the style of Gershwin and American operettas of the time. Ravel contrasted the work to his previous opera, L'heure espagnole:

More than ever, I am for melody. Yes, melody, bel canto, vocalises, vocal virtuosity – this is for me a point of departure. If, in L'heure espagnole the theatrical action itself demanded that the music be only the commentary on each word and gesture, here, on the contrary, this lyric fantasy calls for melody, nothing but melody.... The score of L'enfant et les sortilèges is a very smooth blending of all styles from all epochs, from Bach up to ... Ravel.

The opera was initially well received in Monte Carlo, but in a Paris production the following year it was less successful. André Messager criticized the purposely imitative nature of the music, but Francis Poulenc and Les six were impressed. His cat duet Duo miaulé is often seen as a parody of Wagner, which was quite controversial, although Arthur Honegger praised this piece in particular.

Recordings

Year	Cast	Conductor, Opera House and Orchestra	Label
1947	Nadine Sautereau, Denise Scharley, Solange Michel, Odette Turba-Rabier, Martha Angelici, Claudine Verneuil, Joseph Peyron, André Vessières, Yvon le Marc'Hadour	Ernest Bour, French National Radio Orchestra and Radio France Chorus	Audio CD: Testament, Cat: SBT1044
1954	Flore Wend, Marie-Luise de Montmollin, Geneviève Touraine, Adrienne Migliette, Suzanne Danco, Juliette Bise, Gisèle Bobillier, Hugues Cuénod, Pierre Mollet, Lucien Lovano	Ernest Ansermet, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Motet Choir of Geneva	Audio CD: Decca, Cat: 433400
1960	Françoise Ogéas, Jeannine Collard, Jane Berbié, Sylvaine Gilma, Colette Herzog, Heinz Rehfuss, Camille Maurane, Michel Sénéchal	Lorin Maazel, French National Radio Orchestra	Audio CD: DG, Cat: 423718, 449769, 474890
1981	Susan Davenny Wyner, Jocelyne Taillon, Arleen Auger, Jane Berbié, Linda Finnie, Linda Richardson, Philip Langridge, Philippe Huttenlocher, Jules Bastin	André Previn, London Symphony Orchestra and Ambrosian Singers	Audio CD: EMI, Cat: EMX2241
1992	Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Claudine Carlson, Catherine Dubosc, Marie-Françoise Lefort, Georges Gautier, Didier Henry, Lionel Sarrazin	Charles Dutoit, Montreal Symphony Orchestra	Audio CD: Decca, Cat: 440333
1992	Martine Mahé, Arlette Chedel, Elisabeth Vidal, Michèle Lagrange, Léonardo Pezzino, Vincent le Texier, Marc Barrard	Alain Lombard, Bordeaux-Aquitaine National Orchestra and Bordeaux Theatre Chorus	Audio CD: Auvidis, Cat: V4670
1997	Pamela Helen Stephen, Anne-Marie Owens, Elizabeth Futral, Juanita Lascarro, Mary Plazas, Rinat Shaham, Mark Tucker, David Wilson-Johnson, Robert Lloyd	André Previn, London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus and New London Children's Choir	Audio CD: DG, 457589
2008	Annick Massis, François le Roux, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, José Van Dam, Magdalena Kožená, Mojca Erdmann, Nathalie Stutzmann, Sophie Koch	Simon Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra	EMI Music
2009	Julie Boulianne, Geneviève Desprésis, Kirsten Gunlogson, Philippe Castagner, Ian Greenlaw, Kevin Short, Agathe Martel, Cassandre Prévost, Julie Cox	Alastair Willis, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Chorus, Chicago Symphony Chorus, and Chattanooga Boys Choir	Audio CD: Naxos, 8.660215
2015	Isabel Leonard, Paul Gay, Yvonne Naef, Anna Christy, Marie Lenormand, Elliot Madore, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Kanae Fujitani	Seiji Ozawa, Saito Kinen Orchestra, SKF Matsumoto Choir, and SKF Children's Chorus	Audio CD: Decca, 0289 478 6760 9
2015	Hélène Hébrard, Delphine Galou, Julie Pasturaud, Marc Barrard, Ingrid Perruche, Nicolas Courjal, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Annick Massis	Leonard Slatkin, Orchestre National de Lyon, Chœur Britten, Jeune Chœur symphonique, and Maîtrise de l’Opéra National de Lyon	Audio CD: Naxos, 8.660336
2017	Camille Poul, Marie Karall, Julie Pasturaud, Marc Barrard, Maïlys de Villoutreys, Paul Gay, François Piolino, Annick Massis	Stéphane Denève, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, South West German Radio Vocal Ensemble, and Cantus Juvenum Karlsruhe	Audio CD: SWR Classic, SWR19033CD
2017	Chloé Briot, Sabine Devieilhe, François Piolino, Jodie Devos, Julie Pasturaud, Jean-François Lapointe, Nathalie Stutzmann, Nicolas Courjal	Mikko Franck, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, Chœur de Radio France, and Maîtrise De Radio France	Audio CD: Erato, 019029589692

References

Notes

Sources

• Holden, Amanda (Ed.) The New Penguin Opera Guide. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001. ISBN 0-14-029312-4
• Orenstein, Arbie (Ed.) A Ravel Reader: Correspondence, Articles, Interviews. Mineola: Dover Publications, 2003. ISBN 0-486-43078-2

External links

• L'enfant et les sortilèges: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• L'Enfant et les sortilèges at Maurice Ravel Frontispice. Archived 31 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine
• L'Enfant et les sortilèges - Details by McLellan, Joe; LA Philharmonic. Archived 30 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine