The standing ovation that the audience at the Teatro Real gave Marion Cotillard yesterday for her harrowing and moving performance as Joan of Arc at the stake was by no means an exaggeration. Her declamation of Paul Claudel's texts for Arthur Honegger's oratorio Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher was confirmation that the Oscar-winning actress is one of the most talented that cinema has produced in the new century. And also in opera.
Adding to the remarkable montage by Àlex Ollé, which recreates a filthy place and exhibits a dehumanized humanity, in the style of the original Fura dels Baus –a ragged jacket and tie while he goes naked from the waist down, showing his genitals (which are prostheses)–, Cotillard managed, despite being tied to the pyre for almost the entire opera, that his incandescent acting transported the public to a barbaric society. One that is terribly plausible, in which burricio paves the way to fascism and injustice. And in the young visionary burns at the stake of the Inquisition.
It is true that in an opera house it is impossible to enjoy a close-up of the performers, but in the case of the French Oscar-winning actress, whose face is the very domain of affection and feelings, that distance seemed to narrow, at least when lighting the fire. She is the strength of Cotillard in the flesh. And his pseudophonic voice. And also of her musicality, which was praised by Juanjo Mena himself: "She's great, she always comes in on time", they say the Basque maestro, a great specialist in French repertoire, said in rehearsals.
Cotillard went up to the Real stage yesterday having put the whole team in his pocket. “She is generous, talented, humble”, said Ollé himself, happy to have finally been able to count on her for this Real co-production with the Frankfurt Opera. When the show premiered in the German city in 2017, Marion had become pregnant with her second child with fellow actor Guillaume Canet. She was forced to cancel, but the project had excited her from the first moment she discussed it with Ollé at a meeting in London.
In any case, it is not the first time that the protagonist of Inception, Allied or Annette performs that oratorio, not even in Spain. In 2012, when the OBC wanted to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the young woman who felt the divine mission to save France from the English, in the endless Hundred Years' War, the then manager of the Barcelona orchestra, François Bou, wanted the best, and that was Cotillard. Needless to say, it was a success, although Marion doesn't remember it with pleasure: “Ugh, no, that needed more rehearsals, now I have a much better rhythm”, she commented last night in the after-premiere drink. This production seems to her, yes, a wonder and she is delighted that the Téatre du Châtelet, whose director attended the premiere, is interested in doing it in Paris.
As Joan Matabosch, artistic director of the Real, said, after Ingrid Bergman played that role directed seventy years ago by Roberto Rossellini at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, opera in Spain deserved another high-class actress. And Cotillard lends itself to more contemporary readings... Onstage she appears dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that reads 'whore' in French. In that shirt she read in the German version 'witch', but here she has opted for the most high-sounding insult that the masses utter against the martyr.
Ollé's proposal, with Susana Gómez at the helm, is a sum of successes. The first is the idea of uniting the cantata La damoiselle elue (The Blessed Maiden) by Claude Debussy (with a libretto by the English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti) to Honegger's dramatic oratorio, to which a prologue was added in 1940 due to the similarities. between medieval barbarism and the Nazi occupation of France. Adding both allows the flashback that is the oratory, which is the martyr's dialogue with Father Dominique (the actor Sébastien Dutrieux) remembering what happened, to be better represented.
Alfons Flores' scenography shows two antithetical spaces separated by a glass floor/sky: above, Debussy's lyric poem takes place, a spiritual setting with Gothic statues in which the saints also appear calling Joan to liberate France from the enemy , Margaret and Catherine. Below, the jury of pigs and donkeys... and hooligans who bet on their winning team. How good the Royal choir looks with a good mass address...
The applause lasted eight minutes, and the whistles that the stage team could receive did not exceed in volume those of the cheerleaders. There was an audience, yes, that did not take it well not to see if the penises were real or not. "Luckily these have put on underpants to say hello," said the neighbor in the seat. Joan of Arc surrounded by dirty and listless penises...! Well, it made sense to him. Her inquisitors were beasts. And that is how costume designer Lluc Castells, another member of Àlex Ollé's team, has interpreted it, together with lighting designer Urs Schönebaum, who has joined the Real's production.
Marion Cotillard went out to the terrace of the Real to share her happy evening with sponsors and actors. For a moment, her team of guardians who constantly surround her had to relax, as the actress conversed in a very animated way with those present. Firstly with the French ambassador, Jean-Michel Casas, who provided the evening with champagne.
But also with musicians and models/actresses, such as Inés Sastre, with whom she had a chat. Pedro Almodóvar and Aitana Sánchez Gijón, Hiba Abouk, Ángela Molina and Irene Escolar also attended the premiere. And the filmmaker Fernando León de Aranoa, who confessed to this newspaper that although he is not a fan of opera, he does not miss the work of Àlex Ollé. And in fact, the furero was encouraging him to direct a title. Which? "I don't know, but it would be a new creation, I don't see myself doing a Tosca," said Aranoa. "For me it would be a pleasure."
