We left at the interval...

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 .

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...

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...

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 ...

  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.’

ONP Garnier, Paris, Thursday January 23, 2025 Conductor: Teodor Currentzis. Production: Peter Sellars. Sets: Joelle Aoun. Costumes: Camille Assaf. Lighting: James F. Ingalls. Choreography: Cal Hunt. Video: Alex MacInnis. Télaïre: Jeanine De Bique. Castor: Reinoud Van Mechelen. Pollux: Marc Mauillon. Phébé: Stéphanie d'Oustrac. Mars, Jupiter, un athlète: Nicholas Newton. Minerve, Une Suivante d’Hébé: Claire Antoine. L’Amour, Le Grand-Prêtre, un Athlète: Laurence Kilsby. Vénus, une ombre heureuse: Natalia Smirnova. Utopia Orchestra and Chorus.    Photos: Vincent Pontet/OnP   I’m on a sort of Rameau binge at the moment. Since enjoying Les Fêtes d’Hébé just before Christmas, I’ve been reading his biographies, first in French, by Sylvie Bouissou, editor-in-chief of the Rameau Opera Omnia project, which is producing critical editions of all his works in partnership with Bärenreiter, and now in English, by Simon Trowbridge, who, being less of a specialist, focuses slightly mo...

ONP Bastille, Tuesday January 21 2025 Conductor: Juraj Valčuha. Production: André Engel. Sets: Nicky Rieti. Costumes: Elizabeth Neumuller. Lighting: André Diot. Choreography: Françoise Grès. The Vixen: Elena Tsallagova. The Fox: Paula Murrihy. The Forester: Milan Siljanov. The Schoolmaster, the Mosquito: Éric Huchet. The Priest: Frédéric Caton. Harašta: Tadeáš Hoza. The Dog: Maria Warenberg. The Innkeeper: Se-Jin Hwang. The Innkeeper's wife: Anne-Sophie Ducret. The Cockerel, The Jay: Rocio Ruiz Cobarro. The Hen: Irina Kopylova. The Woodpecker: Marie-Cécile Chevassus. The Badger: Sławomir Szychowiak. Sova, The Owl: Marie Gautrot. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir. Photos: Vincent Pontet / ONP 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 th...