We left at the interval...

ONP Garnier, Wednesday September 26 2013 Conductor: Marc Minkowski. Production: Olivier Py. Sets & costumes: Pierre-André Weitz. Lighting: Bertrand Killy. Admète: Yann Beuron. Alceste: Sophie Koch. Le Grand Prêtre d’Apollon: Jean-François Lapointe. Evandre / soli ténor: Stanislas de Barbeyrac. Un Hérault d’armes, Apollon: Florian Sempey. Hercule: Franck Ferrari. Coryphée / soli soprano: Marie-Adeline Henry. L’Oracle, Un Dieu infernal: François Lis. Soli alto: Bertrand Dazin. Chorus and Orchestra of the Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble. " Alceste: what a waste of 200 euros ". Gluck That was, I'm sorry to say, the text message I sent to a friend just after this week's performance of Alceste . I was exaggerating a bit: not about the waste, but about the price. I'd rounded it up from 195 euros. When you go to see Alceste you expect (at least until Hercule comes blustering in) to be roused by the majestic nobility of it - not bored: Olivier Py's co...

La Monnaie, Brussels - Sunday February 1 2004 Conductor: Ivor Bolton. Production: Robert Wilson. Admète: Kurt Streit. Alceste: Katarina Karneus. Grand-Prêtre: David Wilson-Johnson. Évandre: James Gilchrist. Apollon/Un Hérault d'armes: Nabil Suliman. Hercule: Nathaniel Webster. Un Coryphée: Céline Scheen. L'Oracle/Un Dieu Infernal: Henry Waddington. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Quite a Bob Wilson week for me, with his brand new production of La Fontaine’s Fables at the Comédie Française – a charming, funny production revealing a humorous side I didn’t realise Wilson had – followed by Alceste in Brussels. Alceste is one of several Gluck productions Wilson mounted in Paris five or six years ago. His style of that time is pretty well-suited to Gluck’s calm, measured music: simple blue sets; careful lighting; plain, dark, flowing costumes; slow, deliberate movements and gestures; characters picked out and followed around the stage by narrow spotlights…It’s a style that has...