A double bill of rare Bizet works in Paris is not something any of us needs to do more than once
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
Philippe Jaroussky conducts a performance recorded last month in Montpellier featuring Levy Sekgapane
The Jupiter Ensemble with Lea Desandre and Anthony Roth Costanzo offers sleek and sexy HIP inaugurates the Frick Collection’s new Stephen A. Schwartzman Auditorium
Sofia Coppola‘s cult classic Marie Antoinette is best known for blending a whimsically baroque visuals with a post-punk score.
Félix Fourdrain‘s “féerie” Les Contes de Perrault by the Frivolités Parisiennes is as fun for adults as it is for children
Don Carlos returns to the Opéra National de Paris and it’s an unusually happy occasion
Jessica Pratt sings the title role in a live broadcast from Trieste
Pascal Dusapin‘s dynamic and demanding traversal of Dante‘s Commedia arrives at the Paris Opera
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.
Some of my blog‘s habitués (they do exist) will know that I sometimes quote the people around me at the opera.
parterre box is titillated (in the most prudishly puritanical way possible) to share a clip from the Paris Opera’s recent production of I Puritani starring Lisette Oropesa and Lawrence Brownlee
Even if our monolingual American tourists can be the source of vexation for many a Parisian, our singers gave much for the city’s operagoers to admire this month in stylish productions of Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and I Puritani at the Opéra Bastille.
Nigel Wilkinson takes on the first installment of the Paris Opera’s new Calixto Bieito-directed Ring Cycle
When the birthdays start to pile up in the double digits in big round numbers, you start to examine your past and review what you have done with your life.
Nigel Wilkinson reports on Teodor Curentzis and Peter Sellars‘s new production of Rameau‘s Castor et Pollux in Paris.
William Christie curates an evening of French Baroque music in a live broadcast from Carnegie Hall.
Though I’ve sometimes complained that the Paris Opera, while supposedly short of cash, changes its productions nearly as often as the rest of us change our socks, André Engel’s Cunning Little Vixen first appeared there 17 years ago. At the time it was billed as ‘new’, though it actually dates back further still, to 2000 at the Lyon Opera. I saw it when it arrived at the Bastille and wrote it up at the time.
While everyone tries to figure out what on earth Strauss and Hofmannsthal are up to in Die Frau ohne Schatten, now playing at the Met, Chris’s Cache offers a later, simpler, shorter Strauss with three live broadcasts of his “bucolic tragedy” Daphne.
Following Gundula Janowitz and Janet Baker, Chris’s Cache sends birthday greetings to another favorite diva—Karita Matilla—with a quartet of broadcasts.
When my editor suggested to me a round-up of my favorite recordings of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann I was très, très, intrigued.
Pelléas and Mélisande are not transparent to themselves. Which means: they each have an unconscious.
As revivals of the composer’s sprawling works represent a daunting expense for many opera houses, exceptionally cast recordings of such concert performances serve as valuable documents that foster appreciation for his achievements.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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