Boesmans On purge bébé! Jean-Sébastien Bou; Jodie Devos et al; La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra/Bassem Akiki Fuga Libera FUG818 79:56 mins
For opera buffs familiar with Philippe Boesmans’s stage works, this one-act comedy will come as a surprise, and its subject matter will not be to everyone’s taste. The plot is taken from a farce by Georges Feydeau and revolves around the attempts of Bastien and Julie Follavoine to give their young son a purgative. Bastien is meanwhile focused on selling his design for an unbreakable chamber pot to the French army, whose buyer, Aristide Chouilloux, learns that his wife is having an affair.
On purge bébé was Boesmans’s last opera before he died in April 2022, and the recording is taken from the opera’s premiere run at La Monnaie in Brussels in December. The second half suffers from on-stage noise, and the audience’s laughter is frustrating for listeners who cannot see the action. The booklet carries few photos, and the libretto (by director Richard Brunel) is only available via a QR code.
Boesmans’s music is attractive and imaginatively scored. Musical quotations are cleverly deployed: Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overturewhile Bébé is trying to learn about the Scottish isles; Wagner’s Parsifal when the ‘Holy Grail’ chamber pot smashes; Tristan and Isolde when Chouilloux swigs a shot of the purgative potion. Jean-Sébastien Bou and Jodie Devos give strongly characterised performances, while Bassem Akiki conducts with energy and precision.
John-Pierre Joyce