We left at the interval...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday February 5 2023 Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Production and Costumes: Laurent Pelly. Sets: Massimo Troncanetti. Lighting: Marco Giusti. Larina: Bernadetta Grabias. Tatiana: Sally Matthews. Olga: Lilly Jorstad. Filippyevna: Cristina Melis. Onegin: Stéphane Degout. Lensky: Bogdan Volkov. Gremin: Nicolas Courjal. Petrovich: Kris Belligh. Zaretsky: Kamil Ben Hsaïn Lachiri. Triquet: Christophe Mortagne. Guillot: Jérôme Jacob-Paquay. Precentor: Hwanjoo Chung. La Monnaie Orchestra and Chorus. Photos: Forster, La Monnaie Two Pelly productions in a row: after a youthful Le Voyage dans la Lune at the Opéra Comique on Friday, Eugene Onegin in Brussels on Sunday. But before writing about the production, I want to plunge straight in with a paean of praise for Stéphane Degout. Pardon me, in advance, for the laboured, purple prose; sometimes I find the going tough. I don't know how the professionals do it. This was, so I read, Degout's role début as Onegin and h...

It's weird. I was away for all of six weeks over Christmas and the New Year. In my letterbox, on my return, there was no January issue of Opéra Magazine , and I don't know if they actually published one*. But now the February edition is here, it contains only three CD reviews, and none at all of DVDs... Their pick of the month , with a 'Diamond' award for outstanding achievement, is what they like to call a 'reference' version of Lully's Psyché : 'Yet again, Christophe Rousset strikes a masterly blow in his cycle of Lully operas.' This version, they say, on, Château de Versailles Spectacles, outclasses its rival, dating back to 2007. *Edit. They didn’t, as an omniscient mussel in Alabama pointed out.

Opéra Comique, Paris, Friday February 3 2023 Conductor: Alexandra Cravero/ Production & Costumes: Laurent Pelly. Production reprised by: Héloïse Sérazin. Sets: Barbara de Limburg. Lighting: Joël Adam. Le roi V’lan: Franck Leguérinel. Le prince Caprice: Arthur Roussel. La princesse Fantasia: Ludmilla Bouakkaz. Microscope: Mateo Vincent-Denoble. Le roi Cosmos: Enzo Bishop. Flama: Violette Clapeyron. Popotte: Rachel Masclet. Cactus: Micha Calvez-Richer. Demoiselles d'Honneur: Salomé Baslé, Justine Chauzy Le Joly, Judith Gasnier, Airelle Groleau, Maxence Hermann. Maîtrise Populaire de l'Opéra Comique. Orchestre Les Frivolités Parisiennes. Photos: Stefan Brion, Opéra Comique I've sometimes been known to complain that, based on scraps of conversation overheard in the foyer, some people show up at the opera house with only the vaguest idea, if any, of what they're going to see. On Friday, the arroseur was arrosé : I hadn't paid enough attention when booking, though I...

ONP Garnier, Wednesday February 1 2023 Conductor: Alexander Soddy. Production: Deborah Warner. Sets: Michael Levine. Costumes: Luis F. Carvalho. Lighting: Peter Mumford. Videos: Justin Nardella. Peter Grimes: Allan Clayton. Ellen Orford: Maria Bengtsson. Captain Balstrode: Simon Keenlyside. Auntie: Catherine Wyn-Rogers. First Niece: Anne-Sophie Neher. Second Niece: Ilanah Lobel-Torres. Bob Boles: John Graham-Hall. Swallow: Clive Bayley. Mrs Sedley: Rosie Aldridge. Reverend Horace Adams: James Gilchrist. Ned Keene: Jacques Imbrailo. Hobson: Stephen Richardson. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Photos: Vincent Pontet, ONP After a long break over Christmas and the New Year, at the farthest southwestern tip of Wales (relevant later), I now find myself back in Paris with three operas in quick succession, starting with Peter Grimes . The last time I saw anything by Britten at the Paris Opera was nearly 20 years ago. That was the late Graham Vick’s unforgettable production ...