Karita Mattila shines in première of Saariaho's monologue opera Émilie

Finnish soprano Karita Mattila scored again in the première of Émilie, an opera monologue expressly written for Mattila by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. The opera opened at the Opéra de Lyon in France on Monday night.
      The unique opera monologue calls for enormous talent, and Mattila put heart and soul into it. She was on stage all 80 minutes, singing sometimes on her back and sometimes sitting at her desk and writing.
      Émilie du Chatelet was a female scholar who lived in France during the Age of Enlightenment. At the age of 43, when she is pregnant for the fourth time, she is trying desperately to finish the translation into French of Newton’s Principia Mathematica before the high-risk childbirth.
      During the night she also goes through her life and the men in it.
     
In real life, Emilie died almost one week after the childbirth. Is this why the opera has a somewhat problematic end, dramaturgically speaking?
      The contradictions between her roles as a scholar and a mother could lead to a dramaturgical climax, but at the end of the opera, Émilie just remains at her writing desk, until in the last seconds she is "enlightened" both metaphorically and concretely.
      This non-dramatic end might have been the reason for the fact that the audience remained seated, even though people kept clapping and shouting ”bravo”.
     
”Composing the end was a difficult task”, Saariaho noted after the debut. ”But [librettist] Amin Maalouf would have written a new dénouement if I had asked”, Saariaho added.
      The enlightenment at the end was a solution decided upon by the two Finnish ladies. Director François Girard says that he tried some other solutions first.
      ”At the end, Émlie merges into the stars and is transformed from material into spiritual. It is very beautiful, the best end so far”, Girard enthuses.
     
In terms of music, Émilie is guaranteed Saariaho quality. In some places, Karita Mattila’s voice is treated electronically so that it can be heard simultaneously as her voice and as a voice of a man or men. This happens when Émilie recalls what Voltaire and other men had said about her.
      Émilie is a woman who was guided by strong emotions and a razor-sharp mind. The two sides balanced with each other, which could be heard in Saariaho’s music and seen in Mattila’s stage performance.
     
We will feature a larger piece on Saariaho's new opera in our weeklies later today.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Karita Mattila to return to Finnish National Opera in 2012 (21.1.2010)

See also:
  Kaija Saariaho wins Sonning Prize (9.2.2010)

Links:
  Èmilie du Châtelet (Wikipedia)
  Kaija Saariaho on the Finnish Music Information Centre site
  Karita Mattila, biography and discography on the Ondine site
  Karita Mattila (Wikipedia)
  Opéra de Lyon