We left at the interval...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Monday December 2 2019. Conductor: Alexis Kossenko. Platée: Anders J. Dahlin. Amour, La Folie: Chantal Santon-Jeffery. Jupiter: Thomas Dolié. Thalie, Clarine, Junon: Hasnaa Bennani. Un satyre, Cithéron: Arnaud Richard. Thespis, Mercure: Nicholas Scott. Momus: Victor Sicard. Les Ambassadeurs orchestra and chorus. With its lively and rather cruel comedy, Platée seems a daring, even rash sort of choice for a concert performance, even with some comical stage business. Monday night's performance wasn't wholly successful, for various reasons, though the absence of sets and costumes did make it possible to focus on the many marvels and musical jokes of Rameau's astonishing score - one of his very best. Rameau calls for a special and often elusive kind of declamatory oomph and éclat that only some of the cast could deliver in full. Best-cast, to me, was Thomas Dolié, a perfect Rameau baritone, mordant, supple and eloquent. Chantal Santo...

ONP Bastille, Thursday November 14 2019 Conductor: Fabio Luisi. Production: Krzysztof Warlikowski. Sets and costumes: Małgorzata Szczęśniak. Lighting: Felice Ross. Video: Denis Guéguin. Choreography: Claude Bardouil. Filippo II: René Pape. Don Carlo: Michael Fabiano. Rodrigo: Étienne Dupuis. Il Grande Inquisitore: Vitalij Kowaljow. Un frate: Sava Vemić. Elisabetta di Valois: Nicole Car. La Principessa Eboli: Anita Rachvelishvili. Tebaldo: Eve-Maud Hubeaux. Una Voce dal cielo: Tamara Banjesevic. Il Conte di Lerma: Julien Dran. Deputati fiamminghi: Pietro Di Bianco, Daniel Giulianini, Mateusz Hoedt, Tomasz Kumiega, Tiago Matos, Alexander York. Un Araldo: Vincent Morell. Inquisitori: Vadim Artamonov, Fabio Bellenghi, Marc Chapron, Enzo Coro, Julien Joguet, Kim Ta. Corifeo: Bernard Arrieta. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Having premiered this production two years ago in French , the Paris Opera is now giving it again in Italian, with a different conductor and m...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Monday October 21 2019 Conductor: Laurence Equilbey. Production: Clément Debailleul, Raphaël Navarro and Valentine Losseau (from Cie 14:20). Artistic coordination, sets and videos: Clément Debailleul. Choreography: Aragorn Boulanger. Costumes: Siegrid Petit-Imbert. Lighting: Elsa Revol. Max: Stanislas de Barbeyrac. Agathe: Johanni Van Oostrum. Ännchen: Chiara Skerath. Kaspar: Vladimir Baykov. Hermit: Christian Immler. Kuno: Thorsten Grümbel. Ottokar: Daniel Schmutzhard. Kilian: Anas Séguin. Samiel: Clément Dazin. Insula Orchestra. Accentus Chorus. It isn't often you get a chance, in Paris, to see Der Freischütz , so it's a real shame, when it comes round again at last, if it fails to live up to your hopes. In this case, the cast was excellent and the creative team's ideas had definite potential, but these weren't enough. I left the theatre thinking that with proper directing, a better orchestra and a different conductor it m...

ONP Bastille, Monday September 30 2019 Conductor: Leonardo García Alarcón. Production: Clément Cogitore. Choreography: Bintou Dembélé. Sets: Alban Ho Van, Ariane Bromberger. Costumes: Wojciech Dziedzi. Lighting: Sylvain Verdet. PROLOGUE Hébé: Sabine Devieilhe. Bellone: Florian Sempey. L'amour: Jodie Devos. ENTREE I – Le turc généreux (The Generous Turk) Osman: Edwin Crossley-Mercer. Émilie: Julie Fuchs. Valère: Mathias Vidal. ENTREE II – Les incas du Pérou (The Incas of Peru) Huascar: Alexandre Duhamel. Phani: Sabine Devieilhe. Don Carlos: Stanislas de Barbeyrac. ENTREE III – Les fleurs (The Flowers) Tacmas: Mathias Vidal. Ali: Edwin Crossley-Mercer. Zaïre: Jodie Devos. Fatime: Julie Fuchs. ENTREE IV – Les sauvages (The Indians) Adario: Florian Sempey. Damon: Stanislas de Barbeyrac. Don Alvar: Alexandre Duhamel. Zima: Sabine Devieilhe. Cappella Mediterranea. Namur Chamber Choir. Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine/Paris Opera Children’s Choir. Compagnie Rualité dancers....

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday September 29 2019 Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Production: Thomas Jolly. Production assistant: Alexandre Dain. Sets: Bruno de Lavenère. Lighting: Antoine Travert. Costumes: Sylvette Dequest. Lady Macbeth: Magdalena Kožená. Macbeth: Georg Nigl. Three Weird Sisters: Ekaterina Lekhina, Lilly Jørstad, Christel Loetzsch. Ghost: Kristinn Sigmundsson. Porter: Graham Clark. Archlute: Christian Rivet. Child: Elyne Maillard, Naomi Tapiola. Orchestra and Women’s Chorus of La Monnaie. In 2015, I recorded that  Penthesilea , Pascal Dusapin's previous opera , was hailed as a 'triumphant masterpiece'. His latest, Macbeth Underworld , is just as satisfying and includes some memorable innovations. It's obviously hard to describe in writing what a composer's work sounds like, but for a start, what I wrote four years ago remains true: 'Dusapin’s score is of course, in the circumstances' (I meant with regard to the intensity of the subject-mat...

Studio Marigny, Paris, Friday September 27 2109 Production, sets and costumes: Pierre Lebon. Lighting: Bertrand Killy. Le Podestat: Laurent Deleuil. Le Capitaine Silvio: David Ghilardi. Véronique, the Podestat’s wife: Laura Neumann. Laurette, the Podestat’s daughter: Makeda Monnet. Docteur Miracle’s assistant: Pierre Lebon. Piano: Martin Surot. Lecocq I was supposed to kick my new season off last Tuesday with a concert version of Giulio Cesare at the TCE in Paris, but had instead, maddeningly, to be on stage myself at work, MC-ing a management conference. At 23.30 I got a text message from my opera-going companions saying 'Désolé... superbe soirée' - 'Sorry... superb evening.' So instead, after ending the old season with Hervé's frantic  Mam'zelle Nitouche , I kicked off the new at the Studio Marigny with another hour of madcap fun from the Palazzetto Bru Zane, who are now reviving, with their usual care and attention, France's  opéra bouffe : L...

Théâtre Marigny, Paris, Wednesday June 12 2019 Conductor: Christophe Grapperon. Production, sets, costumes: Pierre-André Weitz. Denise de Flavigny, Mam’zelle Nitouche: Lara Neumann. Célestin, Floridor: Damien Bigourdan. La Supérieure, Corinne: Miss Knife. Le Vicomte Fernand de Champlâtreux: Samy Camps. Le Major, comte de Château-Gibus: Eddie Chignara. Loriot: Olivier Py. La Tourière, Sylvia: Sandrine Sutter. Le Directeur de théâtre: Antoine Philippot. Lydie: Clémentine Bourgoin. Gimblette: Ivanka Moizan. Gustave, officier: Pierre Lebon. Robert, officier: David Ghilardi. Les Frivolités Parisiennes. The vocation of the Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de Musique Romantique Française is the rediscovery and international promotion of the French musical heritage of the long nineteenth century (1780-1920). Its interests range from chamber music to the orchestral, sacred and operatic repertories, not forgetting the lighter genres characteristic of the ‘esprit français’ of the nineteenth cent...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Tuesday May 28 2019 Direction: Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro, assisted by continuo leader Thomas Dunford. Semi-staging: Mathilde Etienne. Costumes: Karine Godier, Sébastien Blondin. Orfeo: Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro. Euridice, Musica: Giulia Semenzato. Pastore: Mathias Vidal. Pastore: David Szigetvari. Apollo: Fulvio Bettini. Pastore, La Speranza: Eva Zaïcik. Proserpina: Mathilde Etienne. Plutone, Pastore: Frédéric Caton. La Messagiera: Lea Desandre. Pastore, Caronte: Jérôme Varnier. Ninfa: Maud Gnidzaz. I Gemelli. My love affair with Monteverdi's Orfeo goes back a long way. I was acquainted with it from the radio before I went up to university. As an undergraduate, I was excited to be invited to play in a performance at the university's Senate House, and disappointed when I turned up with my instrument for the first rehearsal to be told by the surprised conductor - Stephen Barlow IIRC - that he hadn't expected and didn't need a double b...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Sunday May 26 2019. Conductor: Emmanuelle Haïm. Aricie: Mélissa Petit. Hippolyte: Cyrille Dubois. Phèdre: Stéphanie D’Oustrac. Thésée: Edwin Crossley-Mercer. Pluton / Neptune: Wenwei Zhang. Diane: Hamida Kristoffersen. Œnone: Aurélia Legay. Première Parque: Nicholas Scott. Seconde Parque, Tisiphone: Spencer Lang. Troisième Parque: Alexander Kiechle. Une Prêtresse de Diane, Une Matelote, Une Chasseresse: Gemma Ní Bhriain. Orchestra La Scintilla Zurich. Chorus of the Zurich Opera. The cast for this concert performance of Hippolyte comes fresh from staged performances in Zurich in a production that, from what I’ve seen online, looks very striking. Perhaps rehearsal time in Paris was too short for the singers to take possession of the narrow strip of stage left to them and fully adjust to the restricted theatrical potential of the concert: I expected more sustained dramatic thrust and tension. In the event, it was somehow intermittent, with moment...

State Academic Bolshoi Theatre named after Alisher Navoi, Tashkent, Friday May 24 2019 Conductor: Bobomurod Khudaykulov. Choreography: Michel Fokine, recreated by Andris Liepa and Igor Pivorovich. Sets and Costumes: Léon Bakst, Aleksandr Golovin, Natalia Goncharova, recreated by Anatoly Nezhny, Elena Netsvetaeva. Orchestra, Soloists and Ballet of the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre named after Alisher Navoi Part of the legacy of Russian and later Soviet domination of Uzbekistan until the declaration of independence in 1991 is the possibility, on almost any evening, to see an opera or ballet at the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre in Tashkent. In May this year, for example, you could see Aleko, La Bohème, Aida, The Czar's Bride or Iolanta , or, if a ballet fan, La Bayadère, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote or the aptly-named Nutcracker , as well as concerts and other performances by local and visiting artistes. Tashkent, 6,000 km from western Europe but only 600 from C...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday May 12 2019 Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Production: Ralf Pleger. Sets: Alexander Polzin. Costumes: Wojciech Dziedzic. Lighting: John Torres. Tristan: Bryan Register. König Marke: Franz-Josef Selig. Isolde: Ann Petersen. Kurwenal: Andrew Foster-Williams. Brangäne: Nora Gubisch. Melot/Ein Steuermann: Wiard Witholt. Ein Hirt/Ein junger Seemann: Ed Lyon. La Monnaie Orchestra and Men’s Chorus. This will be a shortish write-up as I'm off today for two weeks in Central Asia. La Monnaie's new Tristan can be summed up as an odd but genuine case of three sets in search of an opera. Alexander Polzin designed and built three impressive, monumental performance installations, not obviously related in any way to this particular plot but impressive, and with great potential. But in them, Ralf Pleger staged the degré zéro of opera directing, a pale imitation of Bob Wilson with everyone creeping round at a snail's pace, making putatively significant, ...