In Paris, a Music Hall Built for Unity Offers Stirring First Act
Ny Times
Anthony Tommasini
15 January 2015
PARIS — For months, contentious debates and infighting played out in the international media. Could the Philharmonie de Paris,
the new concert hall for the Orchestre de Paris and the final linchpin
in a decades-long project to turn a park on the northeast rim of this
city into a major cultural center, open on schedule? It seemed
impossible.
The hall's design is adaptable to diverse genres and styles, from flamenco to hip-hop to world music.Credit
Guia Besana for The New York Times
Although
its 2,400-seat hall was basically ready, the complex was far from
finished. Much was riding on the success of this 386 million euro
venture, about $455 million, not just for the larger educational aims of
reaching potential new audiences in the Paris suburbs, but also for
Jean Nouvel, its eminent architect, who was fiercely opposed to opening
the Philharmonie before it was ready.
Then
the horrific terrorist attacks happened here. Suddenly, the
determination of Laurent Bayle, the Philharmonie’s president, to
inaugurate the hall on schedule, even if elements of the complex were
not ready, seemed the only right action to take in response.
The Philharmonie opened, as planned, on Wednesday night with the Orchestre de Paris
in a substantive and challenging program conducted by its music
director, Paavo Jarvi. The performance was dedicated to the victims of
the massacre. If anything embodies free speech and the pursuit of
enrichment in life it is music and culture. Before the concert there
were speeches to a group of patrons, dignitaries and media
representatives from Mr. Bayle; Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris; and
President François Hollande, who received a prolonged ovation when he
entered the hall for the concert a little later.
But
Mr. Nouvel snubbed the opening night. In a statement that appeared on
Wednesday on the website of the French daily Le Monde, he accused the
leadership of the Philharmonie of displaying “contempt” for architecture
and for “the architect” with its decision to open the uncompleted hall.
You
can understand how he must feel. The exterior of the building is an
exhilarating sight, covered in some 340,000 cast-aluminum pieces meant
to suggest birds. But it is still under construction and looks it up
close. And inside there are countless missing details, including any
kind of hand-drying implements in the men’s rooms. On this night, the
striking, bare white-walled lobbies looked like the twisting corridors
of a modern art museum with no art.
What
matters most, though, is the concert hall. And from first impressions
it seems acoustically marvelous. Marshall Day Acoustics and Ducks Scéno,
working with Mr. Nouvel, created a hall basically in what is called the
vineyard design, with seating areas surrounding the stage, like the
Berlin Philharmonie. But this one puts a twist on that concept. The
balconies almost float in space, each with its own contours, appearance
and placement. The space has been designed to be modular, so certain
seating areas can be retracted to create flatter walls. The entire floor
can be leveled, if desired, to make the hall adaptable to diverse
genres and styles, from flamenco to hip-hop to world music.
On
Wednesday, in its orchestra-concert configuration, the acoustics were
enveloping in the best sense. You never felt swamped with orchestral
bigness and brashness; though reverberant, the sound had detail and
clarity. There was, I thought, a certain spatial diffuseness to it.
Sometimes I wanted to be more directly walloped by a crashing
fortissimo. But I heard this program from only one seat, in front of the
orchestra, six rows up. For a program on Friday I will try out one of
the balconies.
The
Orchestre de Paris players are still adjusting to the hall. More
acoustical testing needs to be done. Its true character will take time
to emerge.
The
program, though planned long ago to show a range of French musical
styles and sonorities, made a powerful memorial. It opened with “Tuning
Up,” by the seminal French-born modernist Edgard Varèse, a piece he
patched together in 1947, using bits of existing pieces. It was intended
for a film called “Carnegie Hall” but never used. (The score was later
readied for performance by Chou Wen-chung.) The piece toys with the
custom of an orchestra tuning up, and, true to the Varèse style, is full
of heady chaos and bursts of din, including the regular howling of a
siren. It was a little chilling to hear the siren. The sounds of sirens
have been permeating the streets of Paris of late. Strict security
measures were employed for this concert, including metal detectors.
The
brilliant violinist Renaud Capuçon joined Mr. Jarvi and the orchestra
for “Sur le même accord” by Henri Dutilleux, the towering French master
who died in 2013 at 97. First performed in 2002 for Anne-Sophie Mutter,
this nine-minute piece alternates sections of nocturnal lyricism with
stretches of rapid, fidgety restlessness. Dutilleux’s mystically modern
harmonic language was conveyed with radiant, penetrating sound by the
orchestra; Mr. Capuçon balanced impetuosity and determination in his
compelling performance.
It
was almost eerie that four sections of Faure’s tender Requiem had long
ago been chosen for the inaugural. This glowing performance, with the
chorus of the Orchestre de Paris, was poignantly consoling, especially
the full-bodied, mellow and impressively unforced singing of the chorus.
The baritone Matthias Goerne brought grave beauty and firm sound to his
solo work. In the beguiling “Pie Jesu” the sweet-voiced soprano Sabine
Devieilhe was angelic without being precious.
The
pianist Hélène Grimaud played with crackling vitality and bite in
Ravel’s jazzy, jaunty Piano Concerto in G. Yet she also revealed the
wistfulness of the languid contrasting theme in the first movement and
gave clashing intervals a startling extra nudge. She stilled the
audience with her soulful playing in the sadly dancing slow movement,
and was capricious and fiery in the perpetual-motion finale, played with
such panache that the audience would not stop applauding. Ms. Grimaud
and the orchestra repeated the finale, an encore in the traditional
sense.
After
intermission Mr. Jarvi conducted the premiere of a formidable 30-minute
work: Thierry Escaich’s Concerto for Orchestra. The piece begins with
primordial low rumblings that provoke the percussion to break into
skittish fits. This episodic, vividly scored, gritty piece goes through
lurching digressions, by turns combative, reflective and exploratory.
The
program concluded with Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé,” Suite No. 2, in
which the chorus took part. Ravel’s glittering, sensual, voluptuous
music is a good show-and-tell project for a new hall. Mr. Jarvi tamped
down the cinematic opulence of the music, letting arcs crest and
subside. During some passages heavy brass playing covered the chorus.
Still, the sound overall was dark, palpable and balanced.
From
the start of this project, the decision to build the Philharmonie in
the 19th Arrondissement, adjacent to the ring road that surrounds the
city and borders the suburbs, has been hotly debated.
The
orchestra is leaving its longtime home in central Paris, the Salle
Pleyel, which is owned by the state and will no longer present classical
music. This is all part of an effort to bring music to the more
working-class areas of the city that have been on the cultural margins.
The orchestra is hoping that its subscribers and older patrons will make
the trip to the new Philharmonie. The hall and the arts center it is
part of are right near a Paris Métro stop. It took me only 35 minutes to
travel from the hall to a favorite Left Bank restaurant.
But
will the hoped-for new audiences of young people and banlieue residents
who are much closer be enticed to check out the Philharmonie? This
Saturday there are free family events and concerts all day in all parts
of the arts center. I am eager to see how things turn out. Special
educational family weekends are planned for the entire season.
Meanwhile,
the major international ensembles that used to perform regularly at the
Salle Pleyel, including the Berlin Philharmonic and the London
Symphony, have concerts coming up at the Philharmonie. If the hall
fulfills its potential, this risky move could be a momentous
breakthrough for a troubled field.
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