Were the Biblical characters David and Jonathan meant to be friends, and their love platonic? Or were they actual physical lovers?
That’s an ongoing argument among Biblical scholars. But a new adaptation of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s 17th-century opera “David et Jonathas” by Oakland’s West Edge Opera is clear in its interpretation of the duo’s relationship as romantic and sexual.
Mark Streshinsky, the company’s longtime general director, insists he didn’t have to mess much with the original to take that stand.
“I’m editing the piece to make it feel more like a gay romance, OK, but I’m not changing any text,” he told J. “They talk constantly about how much they love each other and what they mean to each other, and that’s all in the text of Charpentier.” Streshinsky just “re-edited it,” he said, “to make a beginning, middle and end story, both about the romance of these two men and the downfall of the first king of Israel, Saul.”
Still, Streshinsky said, he’s not aware of any other production of Charpentier’s work that presents David and Jonathan as lovers. “As far as I know, this is the first one,” he said.
Along with the music, which he says is “beautiful,” he was attracted to the piece because of the opportunity it presented for his interpretation.
“I’ve been really wanting to do something theatrical that reflects the life that I lead, that this group of men lead, which is unapologetically homosexual, and it’s our norm,” he continued. “And this [opera] seemed obvious. It’s been a passion project for me for the last couple of years.
“All the characters in the opera who are queer are played by queer actors,” he said. “We feel we are telling a story that connects to our own lives.”
“David et Jonathas” dates from 1688, when it was staged between the acts of a dramatic piece — now lost — by the Jesuits of the College Louis-le-Grand in Paris, who would put on such shows during Carnival, the Catholic festival preceding Lent. In the original production, the soprano role of Jonathan was sung by a young boy, as women were not permitted to perform on stage.
The work is not produced often. Twentieth-century productions have tended to cast soprano women as Jonathan, but Streshinsky had the music rewritten as a tenor part, so David and Jonathan could both be played by men.
The opera is in five acts, with an overture portraying David’s slaying of Goliath. The first scene opens with a celebration Jonathan throws to honor David after that slaying, complete with ballet, and Streshinsky stages a later celebration as the couple’s wedding. Again, he said, he uses only the original words and music of the opera.
Music director Adam Pearl, who will conduct the orchestra from his harpsichord, agrees with Streshinsky’s take. At a July 3 event at Clio’s Bookstore and Bar in Oakland, Pearl noted that the opera’s final aria, sung by David as he is cradling the dying Jonathan in his arms, “is the most gorgeous music in the opera, and it describes the love between David and Jonathan. So take it from there.”
The aria includes David’s lament for Jonathan from 2 Samuel 1:25-27 that declares, in UC Berkeley Biblical scholar Robert Alter’s translation, “more wondrous your love to me than the love of women,” the most often cited proof text of the couple’s gay love, for those who take that position. (Alter, however, does not. In his commentary on the poem, he objects to “repeated, unconvincing attempts… to read a homoerotic implication into these words,” pointing out that “the bond between men in this warrior culture could easily be stronger than the bond between men and women.”)
Ron Hendel, also a professor of Jewish studies at UC Berkeley, thinks Streshinsky’s interpretation is plausible, at the very least.
In conversation with Streshinsky at the Clio’s event, he cautioned that “ancient Israel in the Iron Age is not the Bay Area,” but added that while in that society there were strong rules about relationships between men and women, “when it came to relationships between women and women, or men and men, there was more fluidity.” In short, the Book of Samuel “is not a queer story, but it’s queer-adjacent.”
That’s how it’s always been in Middle Eastern cultures, he said. “The text is reticent about these kinds of things. We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.”
At any rate, Streshinsky said, in the absence of the dramatic play that originally accompanied this opera, Charpentier’s intentions are not clear.
Other experts agree, including Brian Robins, who wrote in the April 19, 2024, issue of Early Music Review, “There is no question that ‘David et Jonathas’ is one of the masterpieces of Baroque opera. The story is dramatic, Charpentier’s music magnificent. And like all masterpieces, it is capable of responding to alternative approaches.”
“David & Jonathan,” Aug. 3, 9, 16 at Oakland Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. $22-$172. westedgeopera.org