Suffering a sea-change
Calixto Bieito‘s production of Idomeneo at La Monnaie is anchored by a committed cast, but gets swept up in pseudo-psychoanalytic imagery — and foot fetishism.
Opéra Bastille
20 pieces since 2012.
20
pieces
15
years
Onegin, off again
The Ralph Fiennes production of Eugene Onegin at the Paris Opera is just…fine.
Living the part
Diana Soviero chats with Roger Pines about six decades of performing, four decades of teaching, and how she’s handing the tradition off to the next generation.
Damned to hell
Only the singers, led by Benjamin Bernheim, can salvage a dismal La Damnation de Faust at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
Three ages of woman
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
Americans in Paris
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.
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.
Roadkill, twice over
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.
Keeper of the dumpster fire
To get right to the point, the performance did not come together despite some good elements and was a major missed opportunity.
No country for gold men
Trove Thursday offers two very different live recordings of Halévy’s grand opera La Juive.
A whole new world
The Paris Opera assembled an all-French cast to stage arguably the most well-known example of opéra-ballet, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes.
This means war
Considering the size and the logistics for staging Les Troyens, every new production of Berlioz’s epic masterpiece is a special event.
L’Heure exquise
Although she didn’t sing that eponymous song by Reynaldo Hahn at Weill Recital Hall Thursday evening, Sabine Devieilhe did offer an “exquisite hour” of early 20th century French songs.
Paris was burning
Logistically, a large-scale revival of the operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer is an unreasonable request, much less an expectation.
No place like Rome
“There it is! The Castel Sant’ Angelo!”
Bach to Bach
Three nights, three concert halls, and three incredibly diverse programmes.
Nightingale
Readers of this site are typically up to speed on emerging vocal talents, so clearly there is no need for me to write a review of Chilean-German soprano Carolina Ullrich’s riveting recital at the Paris Opera?
Three nights in Paris
“Oh to be young and going to Paris for the first time,” exclaimed an elderly gentleman who donned his best sweatervest for a concert at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival this past August.
There will have been blood
There’s nothing like a good performance of Verdi’s Macbeth and here is proof positive because this dvd is (almost) nothing like a good performance.