Bayadères

Description

After an excellent recording of Amadis by Jean Chrétien Bach (Johann Christian Bach), an opera composed for the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in 1779 by the Bach of London, Didier Talpain turns his attention to the opera Les Bayadères by Catel, a monumental and exotic fresco from 1810, in the Napoleonic era. It is the Napoleonic Oriental dream: in 1810, Catel delivers “Les Bayadères,” an opera in three acts on a libretto by Étienne de Jouy: he sets the action in India: mythology, dances, costumes, music “rich and varied.” Everything is designed to seduce the public, which gives the work lasting success (it would not leave the Opéra’s bill until the end of the 1820s). The libretto merges an Indian legend and Voltaire’s tale: “L’Éducation d’un prince,” while highlighting the atypical female figure of the dancer from Benares (Laméa), who, in the name of tradition, cannot marry her prince but is ready to fight and give her life for him.