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1e Partie "J'ai pas envie de faire ma page" |
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Maman (mezzo-soprano). Mother is represented by a huge skirt, or "jupe". She reprimands the Child for his laziness and rudeness
"Songez, songez surtout au chagrin de Maman" |
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Le Fauteuil (bass). La Bergère (mezzo-soprano). The two chairs move away to keep the Child from sitting in them, and they begin "une danse compassée et grotesque".
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L'Horloge Comptoise (baritone). Whose pendulum has been broken off.
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Le Théière (tenor). La Tasse (mezzo-soprano). A black Wedgwood teapot and a china cup, in pieces on the ground, exchange snatches of Anglo-Sino-French, to a kind of foxtrot.
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Le Feu (coloratura soprano). Fire leaps from the chimney (to the sound of a wind machine).
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Le Pâtre (mezzo-soprano). La Pastourelle (soprano). Pâtres and Pastoures (chorus). The torn figures from the wallpaper's rural scenes begin a sad dance, to the sound of pipe and drum.
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La Princesse (soprano). From the scattered leaves of the story-book, the beautiful Princess arises, her story never to be completed.
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Le Petit Vieillard (tenor). From another book, a mis-shapen little man emerges to torment the Child with problems, the personification of Arithmetic, surrounded by his Chorus of numbers.
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Le Chat (baritone). La Chatte (mezzo-soprano). The black tomcat and the white female shun the Child, and conduct a wordless "duo miaulé".
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L'Arbre (bass). Les Arbres (chorus). The trees whose bark has been wounded by the Child's knife groan.
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La Libellule (mezzo-soprano). Le Rossignol (soprano). The dragonfly searches for her captured mate, to the melody of a sad waltz, which is then joined by a coloratura nightingale.
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La Chauve-souris (soprano). The widowered bat has to feed his nest of babies. |
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L'Écureil (mezzo-soprano). La Rainette (tenor). The embittered squirrel warns the frog about the cage in which the Child imprisoned him.
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Les Bêtes. Les Arbres (chorus). All the animals and trees turn against the Child, but when in the struggle he helps an injured squirrel they stop, and guide him back to the house and his mother in a chorale of reconcilation.
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Ravel's second opera (after L'Heure espagnole which was written in 1907-09) originated when Jacques Rouché, director of the Opéra de Paris, during the First World War invited Colette to provide the scenario for a "féerie-ballet". Colette wrote it in eight days, calling it "Divertissements pour ma fille". When various composers were suggested to her for the score, she only became enthusiastic when Ravel's name was mentioned; a copy of the scenario was sent to him in 1916 while he was on war service, but it got lost. He finally saw the text in 1917 and agreed to write the music. It took shape slowly however, and it was only in 1924 that contractual agreements impelled him to work intensively on it and bring it to completion. The first performance of the re-titled "L'Enfant et les sortilèges" was given on 21 March 1925 in Monte Carlo; it was conducted by Vittorio de Sabata, and the ballet sequences were created by the young George Balanchine.
The reception of the opera was mixed: enthusiastic at its Monte Carlo première, much cooler in Paris a year later. André Messager, in Le Figaro (fév. 1926) criticised Ravel for producing imitative music. 
But Poulenc and other members of the Groupe des Six were impressed. Arthur Honegger, in Musique et Théâtre (15 avril 1925) defended the work, singling out the "duo des chats", which elsewhere caused much consternation and outrage, perhaps through suspicion that it was a parody of a Wagnerian love duet. (Ravel kept Siamese cats at his home at Le Belvédère.)
Colette, after sometimes doubting whether she would ever see the work finished, was delighted: "Je n'avais pas prévu qu'une vague orchestrale, constellée de rossignols et de lucides, soulèverait si haut mon oeuvre modeste" (Colette, Journal à rebours, [1941])
Ravel described his musical style as being in the manner of an American musical comedy: "Le souci mélodique qui y domine s'y trouve servi par un sujet que je me suis plu à traiter dans l'esprit de l'opérette américaine. ...C'est le chant qui domine ici. L'orchestre, sans faire fi de la virtuosité instrumentale, reste néanmoins au second plan." (Ravel, [1938]).
The work is subtitled "Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties": the first part takes place in the Child's room, where injured objects and furnishings voice their complaints; the second part is in the garden among the trees, animals and insects which have also suffered at the Child's hands. The running time is approximately 45 minutes, and there are 21 singing parts.
A detailed discussion of the opera by Jean-Christophe Henry, with a critical discography of recordings, has appeared in Forum Opera, revue no.15, déc. 2002.
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