Personnages :
Le Cardinal, ténor (Légat du Pape et évêque de Carpentras)
Vaucluse, ténor (Le valet du Cardinal-Evêque)
Hadassah, mezzo-soprano (Actrice d'Avignon, joue le rôle d'Esther)
Artaban, ténor (Financier Juif prospère, joue le rôle d'Assuérus, Roi de Perse)
Cacan, baryton (Pauvre amateur d'opéra, imprésario de la pièce Esther et acteur. Il joue le rôle du Chef des Eunuques du Roi de Perse, gardien du Sérail)
Barbacan, basse (Gardien de la Synagogue. Joue le rôle de Mardochée, beau-père d'Esther)
Mémucan, ténor (Astrologue. Joue le rôle de Haman, le Grand Vizir)
Marchande de masques et de costumes, soprano
M
édecin Juif de la peste, baryton (Médecin autoproclamé du théâtre)
Chœur des Juifs, chœur mixte
Les amies d'Esther, chœur de femmes
Entourage du Cardinal, ténors, chœur d'enfants
Distribution : House of Opéra CD 86245
https://rapidshare.com/files/442410905/Esther.rar
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0n16o8y18zkbqy3/Esther.rar
Jane Berbié, mezzo-soprano
Georgette Spanallys, soprano
Rémy Corazza, ténor
Jacques Mars, basse
Bernard Demigny, baryton
Raymond Amade, ténor
Joseph Peyron, ténor
André Malabrera, ténor
Jacques Pruvost, baryton
Chorale Lyrique (Yvonne Gouverné)
Orchestre Lyrique de la Radio Télévision Française
Manuel Rosenthal, direction
Enregistrement de la Radio Française (INA)
Synopsis:
(c) 2003 par David Drew
Dans l'ancienne ville de Carpentras, sur le Rhône, avant son rattachement au département du Vaucluse. Fin du 18ème siècle.
Ouverture en Do major
ACTE I (Les Juifs dans le palais de l'Evêque)
Scène I
A sumptuous antechamber. One by one appear three bearded Jews,
yellow caps in their hands. The first is Cacan, amateur of the theatre, and a
would-be impresario. Pushing him from behind is Artaban, a successful and
self-important financier. The third is the oldest and the most timorous - the
gloomy Barbacan, door-keeper of the synagogue.
Observing Artaban's swift
assessment of the gold and silver in the room - he uses his fingers as a
calculating machine - Cacan is astonished at his own temerity in seeking an
audience with the Cardinal-Bishop when his theatrical ambitions seem of little
importance even to his own kinsmen.
Half concealed at his post in one corner
of the antechamber, and apparently dozing, is Vaucluse, the Cardinal's valet,
who fancies himself as a poet and tunesmith. Suddenly, eyes still closed,
Vaucluse begins to improvise a Christmas carol ('Noël Comtadin'). The three
Jews, still unobserved, disapprove equally of his theology and his
rhyme-schemes.
Vaucluse is not asleep but merely in a trance-like state of
creative ecstasy. On opening his eyes he doesn't immediately notice his
visitors, but then wonders whether they've come to judge his "cantata". They
reply that they are seeking audience with the Cardinal. So they are proposing
to convert? No, no, they cry - Barbacan more loudly than the others. His
protests enrage Vaucluse, and Cacan fears that all is lost. Barbacan calls
Cacan a negro. Artaban makes apologies, explaining that Barbacan is only a
humble doorkeeper. By way of compensating him for the disturbance, Artaban
offers Vaucluse a sequinned purse, which he accepts with alacrity.
Vaucluse
explains - in polka rhythm - that a new Cardinal has just arrived, an
eighteen-year-old of bad character, but a nephew of the Pope. After his own
long service in Rome, Vaucluse is no stranger to the vices cultivated there,
but adept in only one of them: venality.
Scène II
The Cardinal-Bishop enters "like the North Wind in some 18th
Century opéra comique". He has been promenading with his official retinue, and
declares that it was like being back at college. He is much amused by the
bearded "monkeys" Vaucluse introduces to him. They remind him of better times
in Rome.
Artaban, drawing himself to his full height, hastens to dissociate
himself from Rome's East European "vagabonds". Cacan recalls that it was the
Emperor Vespasian who sent the Jews to Gaul. Barbacan's muttered reference to
Carpentras as a New Babylon is enthusiastically echoed by the young Cardinal -
who hopes that a few Babylonian distractions might help to compensate for the
punishment of exile to so remote a spot.
In this cheerful mood he seems as
receptive to Artaban's flattery as to his account of the "superior" character
of Carpentras's Jews. But what do these comical visitors require of him?
Permission to stage a comédie, blurts out Cacan. The Cardinal tells him, kindly
enough, they've just been staging one in the Palace - and without his
permission! Cacan begins to tell him about the annual Jewish festival of Purim
and the role played by Queen Esther in saving the Jewish people from
extermination. The Cardinal, who knows his Old Testament, tries in vain to stop
him. Cacan, with growing excitement, tells him that this year's carnival will
feature something new and unusually attractive - a street-theatre, improvising
an Esther play. As impresario, Cacan, needs only two favours from the Cardinal:
his permission for the event to take place, the church police to keep
order.
Promising that an early decision will be forwarded by his Chancellery,
the Cardinal ends the audience. No sooner have the three Jews departed with
Vaucluse than the Cardinal is convulsed with laughter. "Dear Jews!", he
exclaims to himself, "you shall have your permission, you've given me a
priceless moment".
Scène III
Vaucluse returns in high excitement: on the way out he had
remembered his pastoral duties and had advised the Jews to embrace Mother Rome
- "being a Jew isn't good business" he had told them, rather persuasively, he
thought - but they had laughed in his face.
In a more ominous and
conspiratorial tone, he recalls how the Cardinal's 80-year-old predecessor
would pluck the children from the ghetto, like partridges from their nests, as
soon as they were 'plump enough' for conversion. A change of name and a few
drops of water, and hey presto, they were Christians; and in due course they
would make sure that their own children were haters of Jews.
Converting
children is too easy, replies the Cardinal. "My idea exactly!", Vaucluse
exclaims unconvincingly, "You'll make a great career for yourself by converting
people of every generation". How many souls, the Cardinal enquires, might that
amount to? About two thousand, is the answer. A huge project, they agree. But
why not settle for a half or even a quarter of them, suggests Vaucluse. After
all, heaven doesn't demand the impossible.
"It is heaven that will guide me",
concludes the Cardinal, "Leave me for a moment, my friend".
Scène IV
The Cardinal's meditation, and his prayer for guidance and mercy,
reveal the secret of his exile from Rome. During the previous year's Roman
Carnival he appears to have become involved in some kind of amorous escapade.
The path to true salvation, he reflects lugubriously, is ever stony. The Jews
are about to have their annual celebration. He will give them a surprise.
The curtain falls. Inscribed on it in enormous letters, and embellished with
foliage "in the Louis XV style", is the announcement "QUEEN ESTHER - Improvised
by the Jews of Carpentras". At the corners, mysteriously written in Hebrew
characters, are the verses from Chapter IX of The Book of Esther, in which the
requirements for the 2-day festival of Purim are specified.
Choral entr'acte
- Carnival ("Purim Fugue")
ACTE II (La Reine Esther)
Overlooking the square in front of
the synagogue are the old, crumbling and dangerously slanted ghetto dwellings.
The Cardinal's police are standing guard. In front of one of the houses to the
right is an open-air theatre. At the back of a tiny stage is a representation
(in oriental style) of the gates of the Persian Royal Palace. Below the stage
are smaller gates - beyond, gardens of King Ahasuerus.
Scène I
Barbacan, as door-keeper of the synagogue, glumly surveys the
Scène and denounces the infamies and debaucheries of the carnival. Artaban, the
financier, dismisses his complaints.
Scène II
The crowds begin to gather - among them a black-coated Plague
Doctor with a false nose like a crow's beak, a fumigator of aromatics, and a
Masque-Merchant and her assistant, marketing props and costumes.
Scène III
Cacan appears in full regalia, announces himself as Directeur du
Spectacle, and gets a great welcome from the crowd. He then declares that he
will play the role of the Grand Eunuch. And who is to play Ahasuerus, King of
Persia? Cacan points to Artaban, who joins him on the stage, and starts
preening himself - every inch the financier-king, and ruler of an empire
stretching from India to the Bosphorus.
With a certain air of mystery and
even menace, the Masque-Merchant continues to peddle her wares. The crowd seems
mesmerized by the splendours she displays. Artaban calls for wine.
Scène IV
Wine is brought and a feast ordered. As the improvised play
begins, Artaban-Ahasuerus is already the worse for drink, and calls for the
Grand Vizier Haman - a key role which Cacan hasn't yet cast. His eye falls on
Mémucan, the last surviving astrologer in the ghetto, and much disliked. An
ideal Haman, thinks Cacan.
Scène V
Mémucan thinks so too, and pretends to have had foreknowledge of
his ennoblement. No-one believes him. He may boast of his Latin and his
algebra, cry the crowd, but his prophesies are always wrong, and he's not fit
for high office.
Too late - Mémucan has already seized his opportunity, and
is clambering onto the stage as Haman, the Grand Vizier. Who, he asks, is
better qualified to play the role than the Nostradamus of Carpentras? The crowd
relents, and tells him that the King is waiting for him.
Scène VI
Artaban, now wholly absorbed by his kingly role, returns in a
fury, stumbles over his Minister, and blurts out that his Queen, the beautiful
Vashti, has refused to strip naked and entertain his fellow-revellers at the
banquet. Haman-Mémucan advises him to look for a new Queen who has more sense,
and is yet more beautiful than Vashti.
Scène VII
Cacan, as Chief Eunuch, is delighted by this new plan, and tells
the chorus that trumpets are to be sounded throughout the Persian Empire,
announcing a beauty-contest whose purpose is to replenish the imperial
Seraglio. Mothers and fathers in the ghetto hasten to push their daughters
forward.
Scène VIII
Barbacan, still at the door of the synagogue, rebukes his
faithless people and reminds them that Ahasuerus is a pagan and his proposed
re-marriage illegal. The spectators mock him - whereupon he emerges from the
synagogue in a role which everybody seems to have forgotten about: that of
Esther's stepfather, the devout Mordecai. Reverting, however, to his true
character, he reveals that his niece Hadassa has already been coached in the
role of Esther (Hadassa a synonym for Esther in the Old Testament) and he
wonders why she has not yet arrived.
A young girl appears, simply dressed,
and moves centre-stage. It is Hadassa.
Scène IX
Hadassa announces that she has come from Avignon, and is the
town's only candidate for the role of Esther. Her uncle adds that she - and she
alone among the candidates - is a professional actress.
She is more than
that. A Diva to her fingertips, she begins a song in which she lists her star
roles - Thamar, Judith, Deborah, and now Esther. The song is in the rhythm of
the Brazilian urban dance, the maxixe, associated with much hip swinging and
foot dragging (an African influence). Hadassa's song is a show-stopper - she
knows it, and the crowd acknowledges it with cheers. Confirmed at a stroke as
the ideal Esther, she is soon gorgeously costumed by the Masques-Merchant and
her assistant. The crowd is entranced by her beauty - and Cacan likewise,
though the instructions he gives her are those of the character he is playing:
the Chief Eunuch in charge of the Seraglio.
Scène X
Barbacan, like the Mordecai he is playing, feels responsible for
Hadassa. He will protect her. One day - and here he becomes Mordecai - the King
will recognise his true qualities.
Scène XI
Haman enters. The Head Eunuch (Cacan) falls to his knees, but
Mordecai refuses to acknowledge the Grand Visier. Haman expresses his contempt
for him and his hatred of all Jews.
Scène XII
King Ahasuerus re-appears, still the worse for drink. He has met
Esther, and finds her charming - a creature from the wilds, a little timid, and
reluctant to reveal much about herself. But Cacan has chosen well. The
spectators welcome the benign effect that a woman's influence has had on the
old tyrant.
Haman interrupts, harshly: he has read the stars, and learned
that it is time for action. The Jews are not to be trusted. Skulking in every
corner of the empire, they must be apprehended and done away with. Ahasuerus is
only interested in Esther, who doesn't bore him with all this Jew-nonsense. He
leaves Haman to his thoughts.
Scène XIII
Haman takes from his pocket a lottery-wheel, and uses it to
determine the best day on which to exterminate all Jews. As Haman spins the
wheel and obtains the answer - the 13th day of Adar - the spectators call upon
Mordecai. Hearing the choral entreaties to his mortal enemy, Haman ironically
interrogates the absent Mordecai: what better day for exterminating all Jews
than the day of national mourning, traditionally commemorating the death of
Moses?
Scène XIV
Mordecai obtains funeral garments from the Masques-Merchant, and
calls upon Queen Esther.
Scène XV
Esther, in all her finery and accompanied by her ladies-in-
waiting, answers Mordecai's call, but does so as obedient daughter rather than
as Queen. Yet it is the Queen to whom Mordecai is appealing: she must go to the
King and plead for her people. She warns her stepfather that to go to Ahasuerus
uninvited would be to break the Seraglio's most solemn rule. And yet, while the
chorus is singing the Canticle of Battle, she declares her readiness to accept
any risk or indignity if that is the price to be paid for saving her people.
Esther leaves with her ladies-in-waiting. Mordecai quotes from the Book of
Proverbs, and is silenced by Cacan.
Scène XVI
Leaning on Haman's arm, Ahasuerus complains of poor digestion
and a bad siesta. His conscience complains. He orders Haman to summon Mordecai.
Haman descends into the square where he finds Mordecai and helps the
Masques-Merchant select new garments for him. Mordecai mounts a handsomely
caparisoned horse, and rides off towards the palace. Ahasuerus watches him
vanish into the distance, and then, as if he had glimpsed, beyond the borders
of the ghetto, something unwelcome and unexpected, he suddenly hides his eyes
with his hand, and turns his back on the spectators.
Scène XVII
Cacan, in his role as stage-manager, tells Ahasuerus-Artaban to
prepare for his big Scène with Esther. Suddenly Ahasuerus sees two dreaded
figures approaching - one young, the other older and more fanatical. The
spectators sense an impalpable change and become fearful.
Scène XVIII
Vaucluse, carrying an open umbrella, leads the Cardinal-Bishop
into the square. Cacan receives them both obsequiously, and proposes to the
Cardinal that he introduce him to the members of the cast, beginning with
someone already known to him - Artaban, the financier who plays King Ahasuerus.
The Cardinal confirms that he knows Artaban, and declares that he will be
taking over his role forthwith.
Mounting the little stage, he stares coldly
at the assembled Jews, and begins the 'Air des Menaces'. Aided, abetted and
further incited by Vaucluse, he advises the Jews to prepare for their greatest
crisis since the time of Isabella and Ferdinand. It is Vaucluse who delivers
the final blow: if by evening they have not confessed that Jesus is the true
Messiah, they will all, without a single day of respite, be expelled from the
Comtat Venaissin - on pain of death.
Calling in despair to Hadassa, the Jews
quickly disperse into the dark alleys of the ghetto. Vaucluse too has vanished,
and the square is empty. Exactly like Ahasuerus after the departure of Mordecai
on horseback (at the end of sc. xvii) the Cardinal-Bishop turns his back on the
little stage and leans against the gateway to the King's Palace.
Scène XIX
Through the gateway beneath the little stage creeps Esther. She
is followed by a furious Vaucluse, who tries to stop her. The Cardinal calls
out. Esther, in her despair, addresses him as if he were King Ahasuerus. Then,
realizing her error, she apologizes - she hadn't been able to find the
stage-director, and was afraid of being late. But why is the square empty?
They have all gone, replies the Cardinal. Nevertheless, the Church continues to
salute Esther as a sacred heroine. Sensing that the Cardinal is about to draw a
Christian moral, Esther sharply dissociates herself from it. If her people must
leave because of their faith, she must leave with them, or die for it with
them. "No, not you!" cries the young Cardinal, appalled. And then, as if
dreaming, he recalls, parlando, an encounter in the ghetto in Rome a year
before, an encounter with a girl who was beautiful - not perhaps so beautiful
as this one (but also presumably of the same race). Murmuring twice that he had
not renounced his faith on that occasion, he calls on God to reveal His will,
and on Vaucluse to show him the edict regarding the Jews. He studies it
closely, and then declares that the Jews are to remain in Carpentras and their
privileges are not to be suspended.
Led by Cacan, the entire community
pours back into the square, praising the new Cardinal and singing allelulias.
The Cardinal descends the steps from the little stage.
After a moment's
total silence, the prelates from the bishopric appear in slow and solemn
procession, accompanied by their choirboys. They have come to the ghetto to
find their Cardinal-Bishop, and express their disapproval of his presence
there. Vaucluse tries to convince them that it was the Cardinal's divine
mission to convert all the Jews at once. The prelates will have none of it, and
neither will the Jews. The Cardinal-Bishop is reminded that he is due in the
Cathedral to celebrate High Mass. The Jewish community is likewise reminded of
its religious duties.
Before leaving, the Cardinal-Bishop turns towards
Esther and her people, gently affirming the Christian message of hope - to
which the Jews reply with their own affirmation of faith.
The last word is
Cacan's. The masquerade, he says, will end with two sermons.
The opera,
however, ends with four pianissimo chords of E minor, and an implied question
mark.