In a swampy theatre of love and deception, a peculiar story unfolds. Jupiter, in an attempt to trigger Juno’s jealousy, employs some of his famous disguises to beguile Platée. The whimsically naïve nymph, frog-like in both appearance and charm, is already convinced to be the object of universal desire. She falls prey to Jupiter’s usual schemes without hesitation. Masked first as a braying donkey, then as a cacophonous owl, the godly trickster lures the frivolous and gullible Platée into believing that his absurd noises are amorous serenades. Overwhelmed, she erupts: “Pardonnez-moi j’étouffe, Et je soupire en même temps.” (“Forgive me, I am choking and sighing all at once.”)

Clearly, this isn’t your typical script for a French baroque opera. In 1745, when Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) whipped up Platée in a frenzy for the Dauphin’s nuptials with Maria-Theresa, he was a veteran composer but not yet the grumpy elder some have described him as being. Departing radically from his more solemn tragédies en musique and airy ballets written for the Académie Royale de Musique (or Paris Opéra) since 1733, Rameau boldly injected his buzzing humour. Platée shines not only with its radiant score, but also through its playful and subversive libretto, which cheekily upends operatic conventions. This beautiful but challenging irreverence is masterfully captured by the 2024 production of the Garsington Opera Festival.

Staging a full Rameau’s opera for an English audience takes guts. In general, the criticisms against seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French opera have remained the same for centuries: lengthy, hard to follow (not the least because of the language), and too artificial for modern taste. This challenge is even more remarkable when applied to Rameau’s most comic piece. Humour, tightly tethered to the social mores and cultural references of its day, always risks obscurity as those anchors shift. Naturally, the strange “buffoon ballet” challenges the sands of time. 

This is typically true of the main character, whose journey is one of relentless humiliation. In re-writing the tale from Pausanias’ Description of Greece, Jacques Autreau reimagined an inanimate wooden statue into the cross-dressing nymph, Platée. Engaged in a mock wedding with Jupiter, her physical shortcomings are mercilessly mocked. Opting to maintain this narrative in the final libretto (managed by amateur playwright Le Valois d’Orville) for the Dauphin’s marriage was audacious. Needless to say that the parallels drawn between the fictional portrayal and real-life events have sometimes led to critical interpretations questioning the authors’ intentions.

However, pigeonholing Platée solely through modern feminist or gender-queer postmodern lenses completely obscures the point of the piece. This was already the mistake made by twentieth-century pearl-clutchers and nose-pinchers, a reaction summed up in the 60s by musicologist Cuthbert Girdlestone as follows: “A work built on so heartless a theme and whose dramatic interest is drawn exclusively from this theme is bound, however consummate its artistry, to exert a very limited attraction. It is too evidently the reflection of a society for whom a woman with an unprepossessing physique no only has no claim upon affection but is a legitimate butt for aggressive mockery.”

This reading of Platée misses the mark entirely. What underpins the character relates to a serious, on-going cultural debate since the seventeenth century of Italian versus French operatic styles of composition and singing. To see the froggy nymph as merely a one-dimensional allegory is to overlook the savant layers of comedy laced around her character.

First, Platée’s whimsical nature challenges every suitor — from the insufficient Citheron to the grand Jupiter. Second, requesting a male to perform the role injects both self-referential and outwardly mocking humour. In an oblique manner, Platée comments on the Italian musical tradition, and in particular that of the castrati — then prohibited in France — while lampooning the clichéd roles they often played. At the same time, the main protagonist conceals a playful nod to Pierre Jélyotte (1713-1797), Rameau’s faithful haute-contre (high tenor), collaborator and friend. Platée’s incurable vanity pokes fun at Jélyotte, on a personal level. But it also questions, more broadly, characters that would traditionally carry out the moving and sobbing love plaints in serious French opera.

Here lies Rameau’s genius: the beauty of the score, with banging tunes and delicate polyphonies, turns the grotesque material of the plot into a musical masterpiece. While laughter and satire are integral to its popularity, they serve as enhancements of its profound artistic qualities. Platée isn’t a mere tool for triggering laughter; nor can it be reduced to a form of satirical discourse on society’s flaws. It is a sharp, uniquely insightful critique of operatic norms, a meta discourse on art exquisitely wrapped in Rameau’s sublime music.

Platée playfully mocks all sorts of operatic features, from stock characters and staged gimmicks to tired allegories and predictable story arcs. A 1760 critic remarked that “No musician before Mr. Rameau had been able to depict ridicule in music so skilfully, nor mock the conventions of old opera with such verve. Certainly, one laughs heartily in Platée at seeing the order of things turned upside down, for this too is an effect of art.” From the whimsical glissandos of La Folie to the mocking pizzicatos that skew conventional portrayals of deities, Platée bewildered and amused its original audience precisely because it played ostensibly with the traditional codes of opera production.

The transgressive spirit of Rameau’s Platée is wonderfully reborn in Garsington’s 2024 staging. Louisa Muller reimagines the mythological tale as an astute critique of postmodern pop culture. The reality TV-inspired set, “Jupiter and Juno”, infuses the ancient myth with a dash of modern day camp and vibrancy, making ancient grievances feel as fresh and pertinent as today’s sensational events.

Paul Agnew masterfully crafts the orchestral sound, tuning a fine balance between the different sections of the ensemble. Under his discerning musical direction, the orchestra seamlessly matches the varied vocal settings, from solo performances to elaborate polyphonic sequences, especially with the choir. The alchemy with the onstage action testifies of Agnew’s deep understanding of Rameau. It becomes particularly evident during the most comic — and therefore trickiest — episodes. For example, when Platée humorously falters in timing, misplaces the tonic accents, mistreats the prosody, and unleashes bursts of garbled vocalisations.

This Love Island version of Ancient Greece aptly translates Platée’s parody of tragic young heroines who generally sigh and weep on the French stage, movingly holding their handkerchiefs. The absurdity of the nymph is captured by a series of magnificent costumes, worn with aplomb by Samuel Boden. The sweetness and precision of Boden’s voice are coupled with a wonderful sense of acting, navigating with brio the different aspects of the character’s nymphomaniac behaviour. The British tenor indulges in sophisticated lamentations, sighs, and strange noises, directly informed by his past experience dealing with a complex French baroque repertoire.

Boden isn’t the only captivating artist. The cheeky vitality of Momus, who delineates the rules of the game both in love and humour and plays a key role in introducing other characters on stage, is brilliantly projected by McGovern’s powerful and skilfull baritone voice. Likewise, Robert Murray’s cheerful performance as Thespis and Mercury is one of the main highlights of the production.

Fundamentally, Platée represents yet another evidence of the paramount importance of singers in the opera’s creative process. As demonstrated by the formidable cast picked at Garsington, and the excellent Garsington Opera Chorus, Rameau simply couldn’t have created the comic piece without strong and exceptionally skilled allies among the Paris Opéra’s troupe. Moreso, he tailored the key roles around the skills available to him — not the other way around.

This entailed, of course, Pierre Jélyotte, celebrated for the beauty of his voice and the intelligence of his interpretations. Even the eighteenth-century detractors of tragédies en musique, whether they were French but supporters of Italian genres and singing or foreigners bewildered by the peculiarities of the national repertoire, admired Jélyotte’s art and dedication. Jélyotte was one of the first opera singers who fully marketed himself as an experienced performer for past repertoire (that of Lully, Campra, Mouret, Destouches, and Colin de Blamont) and contemporary creation. In total, Jélyotte premiered no less than thirty-six new operas, signed by Rameau, of course, but also Mondonville, Rebel and Francœur, Boismortier, and even Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Le Devin du village (nobody’s perfect).

Less evident today but equally important during Rameau’s time, was the choice regarding the allegorical role of La Folie. In 1745, the uniquely talented Marie Fel (1713-1794) brought to life this challenging character that subtlety toys with opera’s codes. A rising star since her debut at the Paris Opéra in 1733, Fel’s dual training was informed by the Italian singer Cristina Antonia Somis (1704-1785) who established herself in Paris after a carrier in Turin and London, marring the painter Charles van Loo in 1733. The singularity of Fel’s voice, covering a large range for her time, expressed something original: a synthesis between the French preference for delicate expression and agreeable articulation, and the Italian art of ornamentation with a preference for high vocal ranges. Like Jélyotte, Fel was Rameau’s favoured singer; La Folie was one of the many roles that he dedicated for her specifically.

The character dazzles in Act II with comic brilliance, exploiting the same tricks spotted in the opera’s overture such as dynamic tempo changes and playful melodic twists. La Folie’s performance, marked by exaggerated vocal acrobatics and mischievous pizzicatos, presents another parody of the traditional emotive expressions of French opera characters, while also channelling the flamboyance of an Italian diva. Mireille Asselin’s rendition of the character is crisp and musically precise. By choosing to represent her as a DJ super-star, Louisa Muller continues to intelligently exploit the pop culture and bling-bling gimmicks that structure her dramaturgy.

We have much to learn from Rameau’s daring work, particularly as opera increasingly slips out of fashion

When it matters, Louise Muller adeptly balances reverence and innovation in her staging, particularly in handling passages featuring dance — a challenge for most directors today. She chooses a dance ensemble that creates a convincing bridge between the original score and postmodern sensibilities. Overall, Muller’s spatial and scenic decisions offer a subtle yet refreshing departure from the original work. Although Platée’s libretto was devoid of the spectacular scene changes that were expected by an eighteenth-century French audience, the 2024 version dares to transform the different sections of the stage in efficient ways.

We have much to learn from Rameau’s daring work, particularly as opera increasingly slips out of fashion. In an era where the discourse on art is burdened by superficial, anachronistic, and frankly boring political commentary, Rameau reminds us that a meaningful transgressive creation stems first and foremost from an impeccable understanding and mastery of tradition. With Platée, Rameau disrupted and reconciled in turn the lovers and haters of opera of his time. For a very brief moment around the 1752-54 “Querelle des Bouffons”, the Lullists — who tended to find him too symphonic — and the Italian opera lovers — who criticised him for not being melodic enough — all recognised Rameau’s genius. Jean-Jacques Rousseau himself, who cosplayed as a composer, stated that Platée was “the most excellent piece of music heard on our stage so far.” Even a broken clock is right twice a day.