TORONTO — David and Jonathan: The Biblical Bromance has obvious operatic potential. Marc-Antoine Charpentier thought so in 1688, and while the libretto by the Jesuit preacher François de Paule Bretonneau sometimes adheres a little too obediently to the rhetorical conventions of the era, the five-act work (David et Jonathas in French) still afforded Opera Atelier a handy platform to do the many things this Baroque company does well. Seventeenth-century multimedia might not be putting the case too strongly.
The four performances April 9-13 took place in Koerner Hall, a curvaceously modern facility that might seem at odds with the ornately architectural sets of Gerard Gauci and of-the-period costumes of Michael Gianfrancesco. Happily, old and new felt complementary. Possibly the environment could be taken as a metaphor for the mission of the company as a purveyor of past masterpieces to audiences of the present day.
Not that any historical consciousness was needed to appreciate the entertainments assembled by Opera Atelier founding co-artistic directors Marshall Pynkoski (stage direction) and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg (choreography). We had sword fights, pantomimes, courtly dances, and celebratory gatherings, all a delight to the eye, even if some of the divertissements seemed only tenuously connected to the drama.
Which, it must be said, leaves something to be desired. Rather surprisingly, the Prologue focuses not on the title characters but on Saul, the Israelite king who (as it is told in 1 Samuel 28) consults a medium (here called La Pythonisse) and the ghost of the prophet Samuel concerning his chances (not good) against the Philistines in battle. David appears in Act 1 as a leader of the enemy troops. Two supporting roles, the Philistine ruler Achis and the (non-Biblical) Israeli general Joabel — good and bad cops, respectively — manage mostly to muddle the plot. We see little of Jonathan before Act 3, when his divided loyalties (to friend, father, and nation) add some fuel to the story. Words in David et Jonathas are less formulaic than those usually encountered in Baroque opera. Still, rhetorical questions abound, as do apostrophic reflections on cruel destiny.
Possbly the theatrical deficiencies are a consequence of the genesis of the piece, which was written not as a standalone opera but as a sequence of musical intermezzi meant to illuminate a spoken Latin drama (now lost) titled Saül. Possibly this spoken component added context to the central friendship, which is affirmed in David et Jonathas but not really explored.
All the same, the score is very fine. Counterpoint has both horizontal vitality and vertical expertise. Historians of orchestration note Charpentier’s inventive use of low strings as an accompaniment to the dire prophecy of the Prologue. All this was crisply realized by Tafelmusik, the traditional Opera Atelier pit band, under the direction of David Fallis, a conductor with an ear for curvature and pathos as well as early-music forward motion. Choristers, onstage and in the balcony, made a hearty sound.
The enduring value of David et Jonathas, however, resides in the emotionally engaging soliloquies and duets of Acts 3, 4, and 5. Despite the implicit promise of the title, Saul is the most interesting character, a troubled tyrant to compare with Verdi’s Nabucco. David Witczak, a French baritone, embodied his obsessive psychology with focused tone and vivid acting, including a passage sung from a prone position on the floor. David, by contrast, comes across as a reluctant warrior, all that public acclaim notwithstanding. Tenor Colin Ainsworth projected strongly enough to make his dilemma believable. Could we hear a touch of Canio in those heartfelt laments?
Mireille Asselin, another Canadian and Opera Atelier regular, was clear and sympathetic as Jonathan, who dies in David’s arms. While we are decades past a time when the spectacle of a soprano playing a male role in Baroque repertoire was remarkable, it needs to be said that Asselin, with a full head of hair, scanned very much as female. It is hard to say whether this complicated or neutralized the lively debate on the exact nature of the David and Jonathan friendship. Anyway, Pynkoski has built a reputation as a director who deals imaginatively with what is in the libretto instead of hunting strenuously for things that are not there.
Mezzo-soprano Mireille Lebel produced a suitably dark sound as La Pythonisse. Singing in other secondary roles was hit and miss. Pynkoski is loyal to his roster (Ainsworth played Renaud in Lully’s Armide back in 2012) and often casts for looks and athleticism rather than vocal splendor. There is quite a bit of kinetic running around in Opera Atelier productions, as if to compensate for the stately nature of the storytelling. Endomorphs need not apply.
I wonder about the future of David et Jonathas in the repertoire. In an increasingly permissive age it might be worth tinkering a bit with these ancient specimens, not so much to align them with modern sensibilities as to take advantage of their intrinsically strongest elements. The 2012 production in Aix-en-Provence (available as a video) under the musical direction of William Christie did not scruple to relocate the Prologue, presumably to sharpen the focus on Saul. David et Jonathas is essentially a tragedy, as Charpentier and Bretonneau seemed to be aware, given the sadness of David’s final words (“Sir, for me all is lost”) before the pro forma concluding burst of Baroque pomp and circumstance. I would love to see a reduction of the work that concentrated on its proto-verismo elements. I can already hear David shout: “La commedia è finita!”
On the other hand, why mess with success? Opera Atelier has enjoyed 40 years of fruitful trade in Baroque opera by respecting the libretto and the score. In 2022, Pynkoski and Lajeunesse Zingg staged David et Jonathas at the Royal Chapel of Versailles.
Which leads me to express some surprise at the news that the 2025-26 season comprises Mozart’s The Magic Flute and (ready yourself) Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. We got a sense of how an anachronistic “period” treatment might sound at the beginning of the April 10 performance, as the soprano Measha Brueggergosman sang “O Canada” — a widespread response in concert halls these days to Donald Trump’s modest proposal regarding Canadian statehood. For the record, I suggest that we abide by the words of David in Act 1: “Let peace bind us together forever.”
