Peter Harcourt
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Peter Harcourt |
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Introduction
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Since the time of the Troubadours, romantic love has thrived upon the denial of desire within the promise of the gaze. Nowhere has this enduring foolishness flourished more than in opera. Jean-Baptiste Lully was the founder of French opera. Although Armide (1686) lasts a full four hours, Godard successfully captures its essence in only twelve minutes. With a deferential nod to the gymnasium sequence in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Godard shuffles back and forth between Acts II and III of the opera, concentrating upon the conflict between love and duty, between la Passion and la Gloire. The setting is, indeed, a gymnasium, with the sounds of the modern city seeping in from outside. The water nymphs of the original are transformed into cleaning ladies, scrubbing away with their pails of water, then dusting and dancing among the indifferent men. The role of Armide is divided between these two women (Marion Peterson and Valérie Allain), one of whom is so besotted with one of the athlete/warriors (Renaud, in the opera), that she wants to kill him to free herself from her desire. While the men sing about the need to detest love in order to achieve the glory of war, Armide laments Renaud's refusal of her gaze: 'My eyes did not please him enough,' she moans. But the gaze is never the site of consummation of romantic love. In a stunning image which fuses the carnal with the ideal, Godard critiques this romantic tradition, thereby also critiquing much of his own work. |
