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Mahler - Symphony N°8 at the Bozar in Brussels

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La Monnaie at Bozar, Brussels, Sunday March 9 2025 Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Magna Peccatrix: Manuela Uhl. Una Poenitentium: Jacquelyn Wagner. Mater Gloriosa: Ilse Eerens. Mulier Samaritana: Nora Gubisch. Maria Aegyptiaca: Marvic Monreal. Doctor Marianus: Corby Welch. Pater Ecstaticus: Christopher Maltman. Pater Profundus: Gábor Bretz. La Monnaie Orchestra and Chorus. Belgian National Orchestra. La Monnaie Choir School and Children's Chorus. Vlaams Radiokoor (Flemish Radio Choir). Photo: Marco Borggreve This performance of Mahler’s Symphony N°8 at the Bozar in Brussels will probably be my last ever Mahler concert. I’ve tried over the years, hoping that one day I’d get what others see in his symphonies. More than twenty years ago, after a performance of his Symphony N°2, at the Châtelet, under Salonen , I wrote: ‘I booked this concert thinking that, perhaps, the Philharmonia under a famous conductor might work some kind of epiphany on me and that finally I'd understand. It di...
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Dame Felicity Lott & Jason Carr at the Théâtre de l'Athénée Louis-Jouvet in Paris

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Théâtre de l'Athénée Louis-Jouvet, Paris, Monday March 3 2025 Photo: DAVID HARTLEY/Shutterst/SIPA Soprano: Dame Felicity Lott. Piano and vocals: Jason Carr. Georges Auric: Printemps Francis Poulenc: Violon, Hier, La Dame de Monte Carlo Georges Auric: Pas d'âge pour l'amour, Bonjour Tristesse, It's April again Richard Rodgers: Slaughter on 10th Avenue, Never say no, To keep my love alive, Bewitched Cole Porter: You don't know Paree Reynaldo Hahn: Automne Joseph Kosma: Autumn Leaves Noël Coward: Useless useful phrases, I'll follow my secret heart, If Love were all Maurice Yvain: Yes! Francis Poulenc: Les chemins de l'amour Some of my blog's habitués (they do exist) will know that I sometimes quote the people around me at the opera. 'My neighbour', 'the man behind', 'a Frenchman'... One of these was 'the little old lady'. This was Dodo , and she adored Dame Felicity Lott. ' Quelle classe! ' she would exclaim. Which i...
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Opéra Magazine's 'pick of the month' recording for March 2025

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The March issue of France’s Opéra Magazine is here already, so it's still going after all. Its favourite recording this month, to which it awards one of its ‘Diamonds’, is Vannina Santoni’s Par Amour, a recital of French and Italian operatic arias from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. All of it seems to be available free on YouTube .
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Wagner, Götterdämmerung (Le Crépuscule des Dieux) at La Monnaie in Brussels

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La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday February 23 2025 Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Production: Pierre Audi. Video: Chris Kondek. Sets: Michael Simon. Costumes: Petra Reinhardt. Lighting: Valerio Tiberi. Siegfried: Bryan Register. Gunther: Andrew Foster-Williams. Alberich: Scott Hendricks. Hagen: Ain Anger. Brünnhilde: Ingela Brimberg. Gutrune: Annett Fritsch. Waltraute: Nora Gubisch. Erste Norn: Marvic Monreal. Zweite Norn: Iris Van Wijnen. Dritte Norn: Katie Low. Woglinde: Tamara Banješević. Wellgunde: Jelena Kordić. Flosshilde: Christel Loetzsch. La Monnaie Orchestra and Men’s Chorus. Photos: © Monika Rittershaus As I mentioned in my last article (on the subject of Calixto Bieito’s production of Das Rheingold at the Paris Opera ), in what the French might call une histoire belge , La Monnaie’s Ring cycle started with Romeo Castellucci as its director, and is now ending with Pierre Audi. What I didn’t mention was that I actually missed Audi’s much-admired  Siegfried in September, as I was...
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Wagner - Das Rheingold (L'Or du Rhin), at the Paris Opera Bastille.

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ONP Bastille, Paris, Tuesday February 11 2025 Conductor: Pablo Heras-Casado. Production: Calixto Bieito. Sets: Rebecca Ringst. Costumes: Ingo Krügler. Lighting: Michael Bauer. Video: Sarah Derendinger. Wotan: Iain Paterson. Donner: Florent Mbia. Froh: Matthew Cairns. Loge: Simon O'Neill. Fasolt: Kwangchul Youn. Fafner: Mika Kares. Alberich: Brian Mulligan. Mime: Gerhard Siegel. Fricka: Eve-Maud Hubeaux. Freia: Eliza Boom. Erda: Marie-Nicole Lemieux. Woglinde: Margarita Polonskaya. Wellgunde: Isabel Signoret. Flosshilde: Katharina Magiera. Orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris. Photos: Herwig Prammer/ONP These are head-spinning times for Ring cycles, at least as far as I’m concerned. The Paris Opera originally scheduled Bieito’s five years ago. Covid intervened, and it was postponed. In the meantime, at the end of 2023, Brussels launched its own cycle, directed by Romeo Castellucci. His Rheingold and Walküre were among the most enthralling productions I’ve ever seen of anythin...
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Cherubini - Médée, at the Opéra Comique in Paris

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Opéra Comique, Paris, Monday February 10 2025 Conductor: Laurence Equilbey. Production and Video: Marie-Ève Signeyrole. Sets: Fabien Teigné. Costumes: Yashi. Lighting: Philippe Berthomé. Médée: Joyce El-Khoury. Jason: Julien Behr. Créon: Edwin Crossley-Mercer. Dircé: Lila Dufy. Néris: Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur. Première suivante de Dircé: Michèle Bréant. Deuxième suivante de Dircé: Fanny Soyer. Actress: Caroline Frossard. Extras: Inès Dhahbi, Sira Lenoble N' Diaye, Lisa Razniewski, Mirabela Vian. Maîtrise Populaire de l'Opéra-Comique. Accentus chorus. Insula orchestra . Photos: Stefan Brion Cherubini’s Médée was first performed in 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris, of which he was the director. Under Napoleon, the Feydeau and Favart troupes were merged to create the Opéra Comique. So we might say this production is a homecoming, especially as it follows the 2008 critical edition used by Christophe Rousset in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s staging, which I saw in both Brussels ...
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Opéra Magazine's 'pick of the month' recording for February 2025

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  Opéra Magazine didn't show up in January and I thought it might have gone the way of so many arts institutions in these tough times, but it was, after all, just hibernating and is now back. The top new recording (their ‘ coup de coeur ’) in the February 2025 edition, with a ‘Diamond’ sticker denoting an oustanding achievement, is the Palazzetto Bru Zane’s new issue of Massenet’s Grisélidis , with Vanina Santoni, Julien Dran, Thomas Dollié, Tassis Christoyannis, Antoinette Dennefeld, Adèle Charvet, Adriend Fournaison Thibault de Damas and the Montpellier Opera under Jean-Marie Zeitouni. ‘The Palazzetto Bru Zane’s latest recording, carried by Jean-Marie Zeitouni’s precision conducting and talented singers, offers us a magnificent version of this Massenet opera, rare on disc.’
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