FringeReview UK 2024
555: Verlaine en prison
Green Opera
Genre: Biographical Drama, Live Music, Music, Opera and Operatic Theatre
Venue: Arcola
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
This intense pasticcio of French songs is a beautiful sung introduction to two greats of latter 19th century French poetry: Verlaine and Rimbaud. Pared down to the bare minimum, this production leaves much space for the music and poetry.
Review
After a snapshot moment of Verlaine in prison, sung intensely by the counter-tenor Logan Lopez Gonzales, the story starts properly in August 1873 with Paul Verlaine receiving a sentence of 555 days for wounding with a firearm his lover Arthur Rimbaud with a bullet to his left wrist, which was successfully removed a week after the incident. Initially a scared Rimbaud had sought the help of a police officer to arrest Verlaine for attempted murder, but later withdrew the charge. The court scene is acted out by the accompanist Stella Marie Lopez as judge and actor Anna Sideris as Rimbaud.
We are now transported back to the late 1860s where Verlaine courts the very young Mathilde Mauté, the sister of a fellow artist who moves in similar circles. They eventually marry and the eighteen months that follow are bliss. The seventeen year old Mathilde is expecting their first child, when Rimbaud gets in touch with Verlaine, who sends the sixteen year old the fare for a train ticket to Paris.
Rimbaud was raised solely by his very controlling mother,
who drilled him to educational excellence. This abuse led him to run away again and again to Paris. The third time he stays with the Verlaines and embarks on a tempestuous affair with the ten years older man. By then Verlaine had already started drinking after abandoning his ‘day job’. He and Rimbaud add drug consumption to their vices. The substance abuse leads Verlaine to becoming increasingly unrecognisable. He starts to abuse his wife and baby son. Verlaine abandons his family and runs off with Rimbaud first to Brussels and then to London, where he edges out a living as a teacher.
Verlaine then dumps Rimbaud and flees back to Brussels to where Rimbaud follows him. They end up together in a hotel room next to where Verlaine’s mother is staying. The reunion is not a happy one. Verlaine buys a gun and during another intoxicated argument shoots at Rimbaud. Verlaine is imprisoned and the performance ends where it started in Verlaine’s cell. Here Verlaine receives divorce papers from Mathilde. The incarcerated Verlaine alone and despairing brings the show full circle to where it began.
The writers Eleanor Burke and Logan Lopez Gonzales have created an insightful work into Verlaine’s life by using songs and a chanson set to his poetry as well as letters written by Rimbaud, Mathilde and himself. The songs by Debussy, Fauré, Hahn, who set much of Verlaine’s oeuvre to music and others are presented as a still reflection on what is happening in the poet’s turbulent life. The narration is pushed forward by Anna Sideris who takes the roles of Rimbaud and Mathilde with minimal costume alteration. She is a strong actress who allows Lopez Gonzales to bounce off her character. As the show progresses and Verlaine becomes more distraught he starts to speak directly to the other characters and even reads the odd letter. This works very well in the context of this production. Lopez Gonzales has a dulcet counter-tenor voice that suits the inherent sweetness of Verlaine’s poetry and French music well. At one point he sings a traditional mid 20th century chanson with great technical understanding of this kind of music. This radical departure from the rest of the show is barely noticeable and he manages to weave the chason into the classical context by applying the same sound quality. Towards the end of the performance Lopez Gonzales rises to great drama with very intense moments bringing about a real climax of the story through his art. At this point the performance moves from a staged recital to true opera.
Overall a very successful presentation of an important period in the life of Verlaine or as the program on the website refers to him, ‘The French Oscar Wilde’. With roughly one hour the performance appears on paper rather short, but its intensity makes it appear much longer. A highly recommend show.
After his release Verlaine had carried on writing and teaching, often abroad. He conducted another affair with a pupil in England until he descended completely into alcoholism. By then he had gathered a following and as the ‘Prince of Poets’ he found financial support. Rimbaud gave up writing at the age of twenty and sought steady employment. After a few settled years he gave that up to travel first through Europe than to Asia before settling in Africa where he worked as a coffee and weapons trader while also becoming a close associate of Hailey Selassie’s father and tutor.
Green Opera, a company who aims to make opera production more sustainable, revived their production about Verlaine’s and Rimbaud’s relationship. It was first seen at Grimeborn last year, La Monnaie in Brussels and again earlier this year at the Royal Opera House, where the Artist Director Eleanor Burke was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme until recently.
