We left at the interval...

ONP Bastille, Tuesday October 17 2023. Conductor: Susanna Mälkki. Production: Krzysztof Warlikowski. Sets and costumes: Małgorzata Szczęśniak. Lighting: Felice Ross. Video: Denis Guéguin. Emilia Marty: Karita Mattila. Albert Gregor: Pavel Černoch. Vitek: Nicholas Jones. Krista: Ilanah Lobel-Torres. Jaroslav Prus: Johan Reuter. Janek: Cyrille Dubois. Kolenaty: Károly Szemerédy. Hauk-Sendorf: Peter Bronder. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Photos © Bernd Uhlig / Opéra national de Paris   Janacek is, without a doubt, one of my favourite composers, Makropoulos is one of my favourite operas, and Warlikowski's production of this fascinating and moving work is one of both his and the Paris Opera's best. I saw it in 2007 (see this initial report for a description of the production), 2009 and 2013, yet it has remained curiously elusive online, and given the Paris house's capricious tendency to discard its productions ( Warlikowski's memorable Parsifal neve...

Whatever the rating and whether audio or video, few recordings are reviewed in the ' Guide ' section of September's Opéra Magazine . I guess the reviewers were all at the beach in August. Their ' Coup de Coeur ' wins a 'Diamond' rating: Konstantin Krimmel's recording of Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin , with Daniel Heide, on Alpha Classics. 'In the Lieder Pantheon, at 30 years old, German baritone Konstantin Krimmel brings us, on Alpha Classics, a performance of Die schöne Müllerin which immediately crowns him as the best Lieder singer of his generation.' No less.