Bintou Dembélé & Leonardo García-Alarcón collaborate on a outstanding reinvention of Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes

Rameau: Les Indes Galantes – Andreas Wolf, Cappella Mediterranea, Chœur de chambre de Namur, Construction Rualité, Leonardo García-Alarcón – The Grange Competition (Picture: Richard Hubert Smith)

Rameau: Les Indes Galantes; Laurène Paternò, Ana Quintans, Alasdair Kent, Andreas Wolf, Cappella Mediterranea, Chœur de chambre de Namur, Construction Rualité, director: Bintou Dembélé, Leonardo García-Alarcón; The Grange Competition
Reviewed 1 July 2025

Rameau’s ballet héroïque reinvented as vivid music theatre in a collaboration between interval efficiency and hip-hop-inspired dance at, astonishingly, the works first main UK staging

Full-scale productions of Rameau’s main operas within the UK stay vanishingly small. Garsington Opera did Platée final yr and Glyndebourne Opera introduced Hippolite et Aricie in 2013. With Castor et Pollux making an look at ENO in 2011, and Dardanus at ETO in 2017. That is not so much.

Partly, it’s a drawback of economics. Handel and Vivaldi’s operas, while large-scale and considerably problematic on the fashionable stage, had been written for industrial opera homes, they often require only a handful of main singers, an orchestra and maybe a single set. Rameau was writing for the somewhat extra lavishly funded opera in Paris, he presupposed a big orchestra, refrain and dancers, along with large-ish casts and plots that decision for lavish scenic modifications. Whereas in France, opera corporations appear to be as much as the problem that Rameau’s operas current, this isn’t the case within the UK.

Reasonably imaginatively, for its ultimate operatic staging of the season the Grange Competition has partnered with a French firm to convey their staging of Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes. Amazingly this appears to be the work’s first full staging within the UK.

We caught the second of three performances at the Grange Competition on 1 July 2025. Leonardo García-Alarcón directed his ensembles Cappella Mediterranea and Chœur de chambre de Namur with a staging by choreographer Bintou Dembélé that includes soloists Laurène Paternò, Ana Quintans, Alasdair Kent, Andreas Wolf, and Dembélé’s dance firm, Construction Rualité. Lighting was by Benjamin Nesme and Charlotte Coffinet,

Rameau: Les Indes Galantes – Cappella Mediterranea, Chœur de chambre de Namur, Construction Rualité, Leonardo García-Alarcón – The Grange Competition (Picture: Richard Hubert Smith)

The work has a considerably advanced historical past. The Prologue and first two entrées had been staged in 1735, with a 3rd entrée being added in the course of the run. It was solely in 1736 that the fourth entrée was added and the third achieved its ultimate kind. From then on, till 1773, the work was by no means absent from the Paris Opera repertoire, both full or partly. The work then needed to wait till 1952 for the following staging on the Paris Opera, with orchestrations by Paul Dukas!

Usually, the becoming a member of forces between a musical firm and a dance firm can imply that the numerous position non-singing expression takes is made extra significant. That is what occurred on the efficiency of Purcell’s Fairy Queen eventually years BBC Proms when Les Arts Florissants joined forces with Mourad Merzouki’s Companie Käfig to merge interval follow and hip-hop impressed dance [see my review]. The Grange Competition manufacturing of Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes had the same really feel about it.

Rameau: Les Indes Galantes – Alasdair Kent, Cappella Mediterranea, Chœur de chambre de Namur, Construction Rualité, Leonardo García-Alarcón – The Grange Competition (Picture: Richard Hubert Smith)

The work itself was trimmed, I reckon that we maybe misplaced round half-hour of music (which nonetheless left us with two and half hours of music), together with fairly numerous purely dance actions. There was no set, the orchestra was unfold out on platforms in the direction of the rear of the stage, with singing and dancing going down additional ahead. Solo instrumentalists can be introduced ahead and there was a way that the gamers had been a part of the entire presentation. Additionally, the auditorium was used in order that firstly of the prologue, Ana Quintans’ Hebe was sitting within the auditorium, generally the refrain was arrayed across the stalls and generally the dancers, while within the second entrée Laurène Paternò’s Phani was within the gallery addressing Alasdair Kent’s Carlos on stage.

Bintou Dembélé’s dance relies round modern avenue types comparable to hip-hop and the moments when the dancers had been let off the leash, comparable to the ultimate Chaconne had been astonishing, however the staging was much less about dance and extra a few whole ensemble. Within the volcano scene within the second entrées, singers and dancers joined collectively as one ensemble, the refrain singing and dancing alongside the members of Dembélé’s firm. The outcome was a powerful piece of music theatre that, somewhat than mixing singing, dancing and stage spectacle, mixed the three into one imaginative and prescient. That of Bintou Dembélé.

There have been frustrations. Lighting relied on a round proper suspended from the stage (wanting not not like a space-ship) together with hand-held lights and the odd highlight. Clearly this was supposed to be transportable, and there was one thing of the rock live performance spectacular about a few of the lighting results, however extra problematically the outcomes might typically be frustratingly darkish, that means instrumentalists and singers carried out in gloom. The inserting of the orchestra to date up-stage appeared to inhibit the total, wealthy sound of Rameau’s orchestrations within the ensemble passages. García-Alarcón was utilizing an orchestra of some 30 gamers and I somewhat wished the sound had had extra presence, because it was the singers had been somewhat extra outstanding within the combine.

Rameau: Les Indes Galantes – Ana Quintans, Cappella Mediterranea, Chœur de chambre de Namur, Construction Rualité, Leonardo García-Alarcón – The Grange Competition (Picture: Richard Hubert Smith)

Standard narrative was not Dembélé’s principal concern. There was little sense of character growth, nor had been the dance episodes used to broaden the drama, so what we bought was a sequence of dramatic vignettes. Fortunately the 4 hard-working singers, Laurène Paternò, Ana Quintans, Alasdair Kent, and Andreas Wolf, appeared to have the ability to seize the second, and the lovers’ trials within the first, second and fourth entrées had been strongly etched, while the third entrée was lower to one thing extra summary. Although the truth that all of them wore the identical avenue garments for your entire night mitigated in opposition to particular person characterisation, while within the ultimate entrée the 2 males performed a complete of three lovers between them with Andreas Wolf taking part in two rivals, one profitable and the opposite not. The dramaturgy right here might need been complicated however vocally this was robust. Paternò and Quintans performed the sequence of feminine lovers, although it was Quintans incarnation as Hebe within the prologue that was essentially the most memorable. Alasdair Kent has fairly a heroic sound, bringing a tough virility to a few of his efficiency however by no means lower than participating, while there was an actual vividness to every little thing that Andreas Wolf sang.

Leonardo García-Alarcón took a extremely lively position in the entire manufacturing, his conducting needing to speak not solely with everybody on the stage, however these within the auditorium too and his vary of gestures had a vividly plastic high quality that appeared to transcend easy practicality.

The variety of pure dance moments was surprisingly small, and few ensembles matched the astonishing brilliance of the ultimate Chaconne. As an alternative, Dembélé appeared to make use of numerous strolling about to music, merging singers and dancers right into a single entire.

Intriguingly, you felt that Dembélé was additionally making an attempt to inform one other story. Dance was not used to increase Rameau and Louis Fuzelier’s unique dramaturgy however to introduce one other one. Definitely the volcanic eruption within the second entrée was vividly carried out, however elsewhere there gave the impression to be one other story. This was most noticeable on the finish of the work the place the ultimate refrain’ Chaconne as ceremony of peace didn’t conclude the work, however there was an extra solo the place the refrain and dancers appeared to activate one another with stylised violence, after which we completed with the orchestra alone, as if saying that Rameau’s music alone was sufficient.

Rameau: Les Indes Galantes – Cappella Mediterranea, Chœur de chambre de Namur, Construction Rualité, Leonardo García-Alarcón – The Grange Competition (Picture: Richard Hubert Smith)

And it was. 

No matter you considered the efficiency, regardless of the frustrations of the staging, there isn’t any doubt that the night introduced Rameau’s music alive with a vivid theatricality {that a} extra standard remedy might need missed.