La Maupin is the latest film from Opera Q. It received its premiere screening for a live audience at the Nancy and Ed Jackman Performance Centre on March 14th. The work is based on the life and legend of 17th-century French singer Julie d’Aubigny, known as la Maupin, a mezzo-soprano who sang many roles at the Opéra de Paris. Gender non-conforming and queer, Maupin became the subject of many stories – some true, some plausible and some most unlikely. This corpus of stories, real or not, forms the basis of La Maupin, where episodes from her life are narrated by Camille Rogers, whose doctoral research focuses on Maupin, in the guise of that character in both male and female period costume.
The plausible stories include cross-dressing and taking numerous lovers of both sexes. Maupin’s alleged success in duels with both sword and pistol may also be true. That she dug up a dead nun and burnt down a convent in the process of rescuing a lover seems less likely, especially as the convent is still standing and, apparently, none the worse for wear.
The libretto (by Rogers) is structured as a series of discrete episodes and mixes narrative with verse by Aphra Behn very effectively. It’s accompanied by a score for piano quintet by Colin McMahon. McMahon’s music, though essentially tonal and lyrical, is contemporary sounding and even quite abrasive in places. The film, directed by Lauren Halász with cinematography by Stephen Bell, takes place in a variety of locations: a garden, a churchyard, and theatres.
Photo Credit: Stephen Bell
Rogers also plays all other roles in the film
Where needed Rogers also plays the other characters who appear, mostly as I recall, as Julie’s various duel opponents! There’s a fair bit of swashbuckling. The film looks really good, partly due to authentic-looking costumes and partly to some playful animations by Weiwei Xu and a cute Maupin mannequin by Emily Neufeld and Mabel Wonnacott.
As well as the storytelling, the film includes Rogers singing extracts from some of the 20 or so roles with which Maupin is associated. This also provides one of the film’s musical jokes about transposing the role of Armide in the Lully opera. (You had to be there…)
The film is roughly 48 minutes long and is being streamed until April 14th. Tickets to watch the stream are available at https://www.operaqto.com/digital-tickets and are available on a Pay-What-You-Can basis.
Photo Credit: Stephen Bell
La Maupin also features strong direction by Lauren Halász and cinematography by Stephen Bell
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