Among classical composers, Joseph Bologne’s biography is unique. Born in 1745 in the French Caribbean colony of Guadeloupe as the illegitimate son of a wealthy planter and a 19-year-old creole slave, little Joseph’s father took him at age seven to Paris.
There he rose to international prominence as a competitive fencer, a decorated military officer, an acclaimed dancer, a celebrated violin virtuoso and orchestral leader, and a composer. After Louis XVI made him an officer in his personal regiment, he became known as the Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
In recent decades, the classical music world has rediscovered and revived Saint-Georges’ several dozen string quartets and symphonies, as well as the only one among his half-dozen operas that survives intact: L’Amant anonyme (The Anonymous Lover).
Last weekend, Opera Philadelphia staged two performances of this work. This company, now under the enthusiastic directorship of countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, has long found innovative ways to pitch its programming to a broad audience. Here they sold out the house at $11 a seat, assembling a diverse audience where long-time subscribers and opera newbies rubbed shoulders.
L’Amant Anonyme stretches barely 90 minutes, at least half of which comprises spoken dialogue rendered in English, with the singing remaining in the original French. The thin libretto—a young lover hesitates to declare his love for a comely widow but finally does and all live happily ever after—left the singers little option but to prance around the vivid sets and ham up the dialogues, both of which they did with abandon.
Foremost among the rising young regional artists in the cast was mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce (lead photo). She sang Dorothée, the knowing female friend, with exemplary evenness and focus of tone, as well as clear diction. Having placed in the recent Operalia competition, she is a singer poised to break into the big time with major roles in major houses.
Alongside Pierce, soprano Symone Harcum sang the widow Léontine with grandeur, though a voice of this weight and color seems more suited to spinto roles. Tenor Travon Walker brought some youthful elegance to the ardent but anonymous lover Valcour. As Valcour’s wingman Ophémon, Baritone Johnathan McCullough offered solid support. Ashley Marie Robillard and Joshua Blue made virtues of a slightly metallic soprano and an overly large tenor voice, respectively, to portray the spunky peasants Jeannette and Colin. Conductor Kalena Bovell elicited a tight and clean performance from modest forces.
It remains to assess the music itself—an essential task because Saint-Georges’ lack of recognition as a composer is often cited across the internet and programs notes as a major historical injustice born of racism and bias. While Saint-Georges’ administrative ambitions were occasionally met with prejudice—at one point he was denied the directorship of the Paris Opera—little supports the view that he was a forgotten composer of genius.
Saint-Georges’ music is charming and stylish but neither innovative nor inspired. Even by the modest standards of French music after the death of Rameau, the L’amant anonyme is less heartfelt than Le devin du village, composed for Versailles thirty years previously by the aspiring but non-professional composer, the political theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It also lacks the snappy dramatic timing of 23-year-old Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, which a generation before sparked had sparked a Parisian controversy over the future of opera.
Indeed, Saint-Georges’ work lacks even the intermittent flashes of genius found in other unjustly neglected operas by marginalized populations. Above all, neither the ambition nor execution of L‘amant anonyme begin to approach what is found in the operas of German-Austrian composer Christoph Gluck, Marie Antoinette’s childhood music teacher in Vienna, whose operas premiered in Paris in the decades preceding his and would help revolutionize the genre across Europe.
Even more misleading are claims—backed by a recent Hollywood film (“Chevalier”)—that accuse Mozart of envying and plagiarizing Saint-Georges. Such claims are historical fabrications. Though they once lived in the same place for a few weeks, there is no evidence of any interaction between them. Moreover, Mozart was undeniably a composer of epochal genius, whose operas far surpass those of Gluck, let alone Saint-Georges. To hear this, one need only compare any moment of L’amant anonyme not just to the dozen operas Mozart had already been composing since he was ten, but to the two masterpieces he would write in the same two-year period: Idomeneo and Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Portraying Saint-Georges as an unjustly slighted compositional genius distracts us from what he actually achieved. Against the odds of his race and illegitimacy, his athletic, military, virtuosic and social talents earned him a lifetime as a visible, accomplished and elegant member of Parisian high society, with Marie Antoinette as only the best-known of many patrons. He survived better than most through decades of Parisian artistic intrigues, not to mention the French Revolution. And he wrote pretty good light opera. All this—and the enthusiastic applause that followed an enjoyable performance of L’Amant anonyme 250 years later—are praise enough.
Andrew Moravcsik
Symone Harcum – Léontine; Jonathan McCullough – Ophémon; Travon Walker – Valcour; Joshua Blue – Colin; Sun-Ly Pierce – Dorothée; Ashley Marie Robillard – Jeannette. Symone Harcum – Léontine; Jonathan McCullough – Ophémon; Travon Walker – Valcour; Joshua Blue – Colin; Sun-Ly Pierce – Dorothée; Ashley Marie Robillard – Jeannette. Kalena Bovell – Conductor; Orchestra and Chorus of Opera Philadelphia. Dennis Whitehead Darling – Stage Direction; Baron Pugh – Set designer; Leslie Travers – Costume designer.
31 January 2025, Academy of Music, Philadelphia, PA
All photos copyright Johanna Austin, courtesy of Opera Philadelphia