Aix tremendae, salva me
Festival d’Aix-en-Provence confronts the living and the dead — and its own future — through audacious productions and an intimate world premiere.
Raphaël Pichon
12 pieces since 2014 — at 3 companies, most often at Pygmalion.
12
pieces
3
companies
13
years
By company
Extravagant minimalism
Ahead of his new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Barrie Kosky chats with Kevin Ng in Aix about pretty much everything — except the details of his new Frau.
Dad, I’m seria
Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra strike (almost) all the right notes in their new recording of Mozart’s Idomeneo.
Haircut and paste
Back to Rameau again this week with Samson at the Opéra Comique, my third Rameau production in as little as three months, after Les Fêtes d’Hébé in the same house, and Castor et Pollux at the Palais Garnier.
Playing midwives to an egg
Nigel Wilkinson reports on Teodor Curentzis and Peter Sellars‘s new production of Rameau‘s Castor et Pollux in Paris.
Quand sur la plage
What can you say, other than that everything was fab?
Everything old is new again
All things were, indeed, made new again, when Boston’s venerable Handel & Haydn Society brought Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro to the stage, their first time doing so in its entirety, as their 2,576th concert on Thursday.
Exotic asphyxiation
Both the mise-en-scène and the musical direction amplified the absolute worst tendencies of the Opéra Comique’s Lakmé in the most tasteless and baffling ways.
Endearing gifts
Since my previous CD round-up review the onslaught of solo recital disks of 18th century (and sometimes also 17th) vocal music has continued unabated.
Significant mother
Fans of divas who sing 19th and 20th century opera may find themselves searching in vain for CDs to buy with this season’s gift cards, since their idols so rarely put out solo recitals these days.
Bach to Bach
Three nights, three concert halls, and three incredibly diverse programmes.
Platée du jour
What must have raced through the mind of the none-too-comely Spanish Infanta when she learned that the opera to be performed during the celebrations for her 1745 wedding to the French Dauphin revolved around the comeuppance of an ugly yet vain water nymph tricked into believing Jupiter was her ardent suitor?