We left at the interval...

ONP Bastille, Wednesday October 19, 2011 Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Production: Jean-Louis Martinoty. Sets: Johan Engels. Costumes: Yan Tax. Lighting: Fabrice Kebour. Faust: Roberto Alagna. Méphistophélès: Paul Gay. Valentin: Tassis Christoyannis. Wagner: Alexandre Duhamel. Marguerite: Inva Mula. Siebel: Angélique Noldus. Dame Marthe: Marie-Ange Todorovitch. “Faust II”: Rémy Corazza.  Orchestra and chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. “Mr. Martinoty's solution is wretched excess: an immense library-cum-mad-science lab with a giant crucifix looming above, an older actor lip-synching Mr. Alagna's aged Faust, Mr. Alagna popping out of a space-age sphere in a gold T-shirt after the devilish deal, a huge chorus in a costume mashup that includes Enlightenment academics, Foreign Legionnaires, Second Empire soldiers, beauty contestants in bathing suits, peasant girls in Dutch bonnets, a humongous skeleton in a flurry of rainbow streamers, and carnival maskers part African-part...

ONP Garnier, Wednesday March 31 2010 Conductor: Bernhard Kontarsky. Production: Pet Halmen. L’Homme, Görg: Gilles Ragon. Faust: Arnold Bezuyen. Méphistophélès: Robert Bork. Wagner, Le Moine: Gregory Reinhart. Le Forgeron: Bartlomiej Misiuda. Le Duc, Le Capitaine: Eric Huchet. La Femme du forgeron, La Princesse: Marie-Adeline Henry. Annette: Karolina Andersson. Kurt: Johan Christensson. Hans: Stanislas de Barbeyrac. Guillaume: Antoine Michel. Kathe: Zoé Nicolaidou. Suschen: Ilona Krzywicka. Lieschen: Aude Extrémo. Quatre Matelots: Hyun-Jung Roh, David Fernandez-Gainza, Chae Wook Lim, Shin Jae Kim. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Seeing a new opera, Charles Jennens might, if he were around today, be tempted to turn around his famous remark about Semele : "no oratorio, but a bawdy opera." Many of today's works are, in my experience, "no opera, but a dreary oratorio." I usually take one or two contemporary pieces each season, but make my way to ...