Pascal Dusapin‘s dynamic and demanding traversal of Dante‘s Commedia arrives at the Paris Opera
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Pick a little, talk a little
Following the successful launch of the new regular feature The Talk of the Town in January, the team at the box is inviting contributions for a new quarter of operatic potpourri.
Nigel Wilkinson reports on Teodor Curentzis and Peter Sellars‘s new production of Rameau‘s Castor et Pollux in Paris.
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.
It was, at least, a jolly good show. Whether or not it actually suited Stravinsky’s music or Auden and Kallman’s text, is another question.
Carlo Rizzi conducts Elsa Dreisig, Benjamin Bernheim, Lea Desandre,
Huw Montague Rendall, and Jean Teitgen in a performance from Paris recorded last spring
This month, both the Paris Opéra and the Opéra-Comique are mounting seminal works about unhinged anti-heroines who meet their downfall after falling head-over-heels for an unavailable, deeply unattainable man – Salome, in the case of the Opéra; and Armide, in the case of the Opéra-Comique.
On the day of the Super Bowl, I attended a near-sold-out screening of the Paris Opéra’s recent production of Rameau’s 1735 opéra-ballet Les Indes galantes at New York’s Alliance Française.
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.
The Paris Opera continued their 350th anniversary celebration January 26 with a brand new production of Alessandro Scarlatti’s 1707 oratorio Il Primo Omicidio ovvero Caino.
Logistically, a large-scale revival of the operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer is an unreasonable request, much less an expectation.
Finally an announcement to get the heart pumping: the Paris Opera’s 2018-2019 season offers no fewer than 11 new productions!
“Madame Anna Netrebko, souffrant d’une bronchite aiguë, ne sera pas en mesure d’assurer le rôle de Leonora pour la représentation du spectacle Il Trovatore ce jeudi 11 février.
“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.
“Union members have occupied Paris’ Opera Garnier in a protest over proposed changes to labor rules for theater workers.”
