Dunedin Consort: Out of Her Mouth

Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh - 23/06/23

Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) was a French composer in the reign of Louis XIV.  She had a long career at a time when women played a significant part in music and the arts in Paris.  Her 1694 ‘Cephale et Procis,’ the first opera by a woman to be performed at the Paris Opera, can be seen briefly in the recent film ‘Chevalier’ about the later French composer, Joseph de Boulogne.  During a craze for cantatas some years later, she published her ‘Biblical Cantatas’ in 1708 and 1711, which took for their subject male and female characters from the Old Testament.  Dunedin Consort, working with Hera and Mahogany Opera present three of these works, ‘Susanne’, ‘Rachel’ and ‘Judith.’   With three stunning singers who can also act, and four accomplished musicians, this British premiere introduces audiences to exciting music, probably unknown to most.  

There’s an almost full house in Assembly Roxy, a new venue for me.  Once known as Lady Glenorchy’s Church, it’s now owned by Edinburgh University and is a Fringe Venue. The acoustic is good, though with unraked seating, the action on stage is difficult to view clearly from many parts of the hall.  More about that later.  

Dunedin have, as usual, brought an inspiring team of musicians here.  Anna Dennis and Carolyn Sampson have illustrious careers in concerts and operas, in music ranging from baroque to contemporary. Alys Mererid Roberts is a young Welsh singer with interesting experience in the Samling Academy and in opera roles at the Royal Academy of Music and Welsh National Opera. Katarzyna Kowalik on harpsichord, cellist, Lucia Capellaro and theorbo player, Lynda Sayce play in all three works, with violinist, Tuomo Suni, joining them for the third.

Anna Dennis sings Susanne, whose bathing is spied on by two Elders who have her taken to court on a trumped-up of adultery when she spurns them.  She’s freed when the judge accepts her testimony.  The modern English version by Toria Banks is direct and takes us quickly to the heart of the story: “A teenage girl, Susanne, took a bath in a stream/Unaware two old men watched her bathe from the bushes.”

Susanne’s story is told by her older self, and it shifts from the third to the first person.  The cantatas are similar in form, alternating three passages of recitative with three arias, the last providing the moral of the action. The second aria requires Dennis to take on the personae of the old men, in a neat piece of writing which moves from ‘friendly banter’ –“we’d like to get to know you/Give us a little smile” to outright threat: “Relax and treat us nicely/And no-one’s getting hurt/You’re just getting what’s coming/You nasty little flirt”.  In the final aria Susanne marvels at the courage she had as a girl but reflects that “no child should be made to be brave.”  Dennis gives a spirited interpretation which uses the text, the clear story-telling in the recitative and the more elaborate, sometimes lyrical music in the arias to create a rounded sympathetic portrait.

In ‘Rachel’ the heroine does not have a voice till the end.  It was originally called ‘Rachel et Jacob’ and the voices heard are those of Jacob, Rachel’s fiancé, and her father Laban.  Alys Mererid Roberts has the tricky task of embodying the nervous bride onstage while singing in other voices.  Jacob is tricked by Laban into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah, so is as badly treated as Rachel.  Roberts in a fine piece of singing and acting conveys the young man’s ardour in the first aria: “Come and kiss away all the pain/ Of the time we’ve spent apart” and his anger when he confronts Laban in the second.  Roberts portrays Laban as unrepentant of his callous behaviour; he believes Jacob will have the best of both worlds as he’ll allow him to marry Rachel too.  Eventually Rachel’s own voice is heard in the final aria as she settles for “finding joy as best we can.”  Roberts vividly brings to life a character whose life is defined by the actions of the men around her, but who finds some blessing in compromise.  She’s a talented singer and someone to look out for.

Carolyn Sampson as Judith is the most daring of the three heroines, as she kills her would-be seducer, Holofernes, thus saving her country as well as herself.  This is a more complex cantata, and with the addition of the violinist, Tuomo Sumi to the ensemble, contains the most interesting music.  He plays in the catchy dance-like overture, the accompaniment to the first aria, and the lovely slow interlude suggesting sleep. You can hear ‘Judith’ online with score and French text here.

Sampson first plays the swaggering Holofernes, confident that his victories have given him the right to seduce Judith. The rest of the cantata takes us, almost in real time, through what follows: drugging him with wine, her hesitation, the deadly blow and the final exultation.  In a period when much stage action and interplay was stylised, this psychologically authentic scene is a marker of Jacquet de la Guerre’s originality.  Judith becomes a champion of her community, both the French version and the translation emphasising how the “weakest of us” can change things.  Sampson revels in the role of Judith, hesitant and finally triumphant.  

Here I will temper my praise.  ‘Out of Her Mouth’ is a costumed and semi-staged performance, directed by Mathilde Lopez, Cardiff-based director with extensive experience in Welsh National Theatre and elsewhere.  Anna Dennis is in shorts and a t-shirt, with the slogan “Keep your Laws off my Body.”   Alys Roberts wears a white wedding outfit with zipped-up gilet and pink wellingtons, while Carolyn Sampson stands sharpening knives in a long cream satin slip. All fine! Behind the four musicians, rolls of blue paper hang down, on which surtitles and some video is projected, and at the front of the stage Rachel places five watermelons. Hmm!  Susanne’s cantata is accompanied by cutting up of watermelons, which are eaten and sploshed about the stage – the blue paper comes in handy to wipe up. As the two elders make their advances, a video of a hand raking through the flesh in an open watermelon is projected on the screen… The critic will spare further blushes.

There are no watermelons in ‘Rachel’ and I managed not to make out what was happening in the video of an open seed pod – which also features on the publicity.  A watermelon represents the head of Holofernes, beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat, with the ensemble members, but not the front row of the audience, protected by plastic sheeting.  Meanwhile the violinist, Tuomo Suni, sits throughout the first two cantatas with a watermelon on his lap as he plays with his mobile phone.  A potent symbol of the uncaring patrimony, no doubt.  

Did the stage presentation add to the enjoyment of the music?  For me it didn’t, and it perhaps diminished my appreciation of the ironic and comic nuances which Toria Banks, following the French original, included in her translation. These are condensed works and the frequent stage movement blunted their impact.  Mathilde Lopez is clear in her interpretation of the cantatas as feminist stage works, as indeed they are, but the heavy-handed treatment made it feel as if Holofernes’ was not the only head being battered! You can read her introduction and that of Toria Banks in the online programme here.

The Dunedin Consort’s programme for 2023-2024 is now available, and it contains some bad news for Edinburgh fans. Their Edinburgh concerts on 12th October and 23rd November clash with Scottish Chamber Orchestra concerts on the same night. This is unfortunate and may reduce audience numbers at all four concerts. I wonder if there’s still time to amend the dates.