A hunter-mate becomes hunted and then mated. A lively performance, rich in emotions… the Les Cris de Paris ensemble serves the dramatic efficiency of “Actéon”, Charpentier’s opera.
This mini-opera is stretched like a crossbow. In less than three quarters of an hour, just the time it would take for these fictitious events to take place in reality, the lightest banter gives way to the most abject horror. Let us recall the argument, drawn from Metamorphoses, by Ovid: returning from a hunting trip, Actaeon surprises Diane and her friends bathing naked in a “Friendly place”, while they thought they were out of sight. The goddess notices this and, for the trouble, transforms the hunter into a deer, which ends up devoured by his own dogs. The affair is liquidated like a gulp of blood in a siphon. In the background, an annealed revenge story dating back to Jupiter’s kidnapping of Europe. “I have always been fascinated by this work, its dramaturgical efficiency, confides the conductor Geoffroy Jourdain, who has just set up theActaeon by Charpentier with his ensemble, Les Cris de Paris. I like its “Janus with two faces” side, both sad and cheerful, and especially the fact that it takes place in real time, without an ellipse, a bit like the movie Cléo from 5 to 7, by Agnès Varda. “
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