Now, composer Joseph Boulogne would be hailed as a Renaissance man: artist, athlete, intellectual, soldier. Born in Guadeloupe in 1745, the son of a white French plantation owner and an enslaved mother of Senegalese origin, Boulogne became a virtuoso violinist, a prodigious composer, a fencing champion, a general of Europe's first black regiment, and an avid abolitionist.
But Boulogne, also known as Chevalier de Saint-Georges (and whose last name is sometimes spelled “Bologne”), was a biracial man in a time and place that had little room for him, which means his extraordinary life has been largely erased from memory. historical narrative, although that is beginning to change.
“The Chevalier,” an elegant hybrid of theater and music, seeks to revive its reputation. The show was written and directed by Bill Barclay, artistic director of Music Before 1800. (Barclay also plays Choderlos de Laclos, a collaborator of Boulogne and author of the novel “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.”) The United Palace Theater in Washington Heights had its New York City premiere on Sunday; It will be available to stream next month.
“The Chevalier” begins unpromisingly. Barclay takes as his imaginative starting point the few weeks in which Boulogne and Mozart were housemates in Paris. Mozart, 11 years younger, questions Boulogne about the story of his life, and he responds with long, expository answers that hit important biographical points: more school sermons than seductive drama.
However, soon “The Chevalier” finds a clever and incisive rhythm. (It's much more enjoyable than the soapy, forgettable biopic “Chevalier” from 2022.) Barclay's setting also dismantles the degrading idea that Boulogne was “the black Mozart”; at best, a candidate also in the white classical pantheon. Instead, Barclay presents him as a mentor to Mozart, guiding him through the politics of musical Paris.
The narrative elements of “The Chevalier,” interspersed with musical excerpts, illuminate and contextualize Boulogne’s music in a way that a listener’s chance encounter, on a playlist or at a live concert, might not. In one scene, Boulogne and the French queen Marie Antoinette, whom Boulogne tutored in music, discuss how in a piece for violin and piano, he gives both instruments equal weight, making them pairs: the philosophy of a fervent abolitionist, summed up in a sonata
Barclay also draws nuanced, if difficult to miss, links between 18th-century France and 21st-century America, including references to the racist policing and violence that Boulogne experienced.
Actor RJ Foster shares the role of Boulogne with violinist Brendon Elliott; Foster takes on the speaking role, while Elliott plays his instrument as Chevalier. In some wry comments, Foster conveys the impossible position Boulogne occupied in French society, as a black abolitionist working in the service of the royal court, which was financed in part by the enslavement of people in the Caribbean. (Marie Antoinette does not fully understand his situation and believes that he would be the ideal musical director of the Paris Opera; Boulogne does not get the job, after nobles and musicians refuse to be directed by “a mulatto”).
Elliott brings his silvery tone, excellent phrasing, and commanding technique to the Chevalier's solos. I hope to see him perform at more traditional concerts.
Merritt Janson brings a certain pathos to the role of Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution. David Joseph's Mozart is a petulant newcomer, thirsty for public adoration.
The Harlem Chamber Players deliver brilliant, tense performances. Pianist Jas Ogiste plays tender, yearning solos for the character of Marie Antoinette; Violinist Ashley Horne provides deep tone and rich color to her duet with Elliott in an excerpt from Boulogne's Sinfonia Concertante in G major.
In a talk after the performance, Elliott correctly described Boulogne's formidable violin works as “proto-Paganini,” while Barclay offered a spirited defense of Boulogne's music, which is often, and unfairly, compared to that of Haydn and Mozart. “Mozart was not leading a revolution,” Barclay observed: “The man was busy.”
“The Knight”
Held Sunday at the United Palace, Manhattan; available to stream February 4-18 at www.mb1800.org.
