We left at the interval...

Opéra Comique (Salle Favart), Paris, Sunday June 7, 2026 Programme: Janáček: Mládí (Youth) for wind ensemble. Poulenc: La bonne neige, De grandes cuillers de neige (from Un soir de neige ), O magnum mysterium (from Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël ). Jean-Claude Grumberg: De Pitchik à Pitchouk , a 'tale for old children'. Tino Rossi, arr. Brice Legée for five voices: Petit Papa Noël . Krása: Brundibár, incorporating… ... Ilse Weber: Ich wandre durch Theresienstadt .  Cast: Conductor: Louis Langrée. Production: Muriel Mayette-Holtz, Jean-Claude Berutti. Sets and costumes: Rudy Sabounghi. Lighting: François Thouret. Choreography: Christine Bonneton. Drawings: Louis Lavedan. Les Frivolités Parisiennes. Children of the Maîtrise Populaire de l'Opéra-Comique. Photos: Stefan Brion The dreadful history of Hans Krása’s Brundibár will be familiar to many, so I won’t expound on it for long in this post. Details are easy enough to find online. Krása was a Jewish composer in Czec...

Opéra Comique (Salle Favart), Paris, Tuesday March 17, 2026 Conductor: Matthias Pintscher. Production: James Darrah Black. Sets: Adam Rigg. Costumes: Molly Irelan. Lighting: Yi Zhao. Vidéo: Hana Kim. Peter: Evan Hughes. Anubis: Marie-Adeline Henry. Mère: Katarina Bradić. Clara: Catherine Trottmann. Vieille femme: Julie Robard-Gendre. Azaël: Hélène Alexandridis. Enfant: Elias Passard. Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Photos © Stéphane Brion ‘Un bon opéra c'est d'abord un bon livret,’ i.e. a good opera starts with a good libretto. Discuss. So as not to die an idiot, as the French saying goes, I try to have a couple of new operas lined up every season. The policy has served me quite well: more often than not, the experience turns out to be rewarding. My first discovery this season, Matthias Pintscher’s Nuit sans aube at the Opéra Comique, was, for once, less so, and I think the main reason was that the text (you could hardly call it a ‘plot’) failed to engage my interest...

Opéra Comique (Salle Favart), Paris, Wednesday March 19, 2025 Conductor: Raphaël Pichon. Production: Claus Guth (revived by Romain Gilbert). Sets: Étienne Pluss. Costumes: Ursula Kudrna. Lighting & Videos: Bertrand Couderc. Samson: Jarrett Ott. Dalila: Ana Maria Labin. Timna: Julie Roset. Achisch: Mirco Palazzi. Elon: Laurence Kilsby. L'Ange: Camille Chopin. Premier Juge/Un Convive: Richard Pittsinger. Deuxième convive: René Ramos Premier. La mère de Samson (spoken role): Andrea Ferréol. Un sans-abri (spoken role): Pascal Lifschutz. Samson as a child: Isaac Muniesa. Ensemble Pygmalion. Photos: Stefan Brion Back to Rameau again this week with Samson , my third Rameau production in as little as three months, after Les Fêtes d'Hébé in the same house, and Castor et Pollux at the Palais Garnier. All three are linked, as Rameau reused music from the aborted Samson in each of the others. Samson as presented by Raphaël Pichon and Claus Guth is not an attempt to reconstitute the...

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 Comique, Paris, 17 December 2024 Conductor: William Christie. Production: Robert Carsen. Sets and Costumes: Gideon Davey. Lighting: Robert Carsen, Peter Van Praet. Choreography: Nicolas Paul. Video: Renaud Rubiano. Hébé/Naïade: Emmanuelle de Negri. Sapho/Iphise/Eglé: Lea Desandre. L'Amour/Le ruisseau/Une bergère: Ana Vieira Leite. Momus/Mercure: Marc Mauillon. Hymas/Tirtée: Renato Dolcini. Le ruisseau/Lycurgue: Cyril Auvity. Eurilas/Alcée: Lisandro Abadie. Thélème: Antonin Rondepierre. Le Fleuve: Matthieu Walendzik. Les Arts Florissants. Photos: Vincent Pontet William Christie turned 80 on December 19 this year. He chose, as his present to himself, to perform Rameau’s Les Fêtes d’Hébé in a new staging by Robert Carsen, at the Opéra Comique - Christie's thirteenth production there since the famous Atys of 1987. In doing so, he offered a magnificent Christmas present to us all. As this is one of Rameau’s best, but not best-known, works, I’ll begin with a little bit about ...

Opéra Comique, Paris, Wednesday October 30 2024 Conductor: George Benjamin. Production, sets and lighting: Marie-Christine Soma, Daniel Jeanneteau. Costumes: Marie La Rocca. Videos: Hicham Berrada. Woman: Marianne Crebassa. Zabelle: Anna Prohaska. Lover 1/Composer: Beate Mordal. Lover 2/Composer's assistant: Cameron Shahbazi. Artisan/collector: John Brancy. Actors: Matthieu Baquey, Lisa Grandmottet, Eulalie Rambaud. Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Photos: © Jean-Louis Fernandez My first opera of the new season in Paris, after kicking off in Brussels with Kris Defoort’s thought-provoking The Day of our Singing , was another nearly-new work, totally new to me: Sir George Benjamin’s Picture a day like this . Like Benjamin’s much-admired Written on Skin , Picture a day like this has (like all his operas, in fact) a libretto by Martin Crimp, was first performed at the Aix Festival (in this case in 2023), and has now had its Paris premiere at the Opéra Comique, under Sir Georg...

Opéra Comique, Paris, Monday April 1 2019 Conductor: Sébastien Rouland. Production: Michel Fau. Sets: Emmanuel Charles. Costumes: Christian Lacroix. Lighting: Joël Fabing. Chapelou/Saint-Phar: Michael Spyres. Madeleine/Madame de Latour: Florie Valiquette. Le marquis de Corcy: Franck Leguérinel. Biju/Alcindor: Laurent Kubla. Rose: Michel Fau. Louis XV: Yannis Ezziadi. Bourdon: Julien Clément. Orchestra and chorus of the Opéra de Rouen Normandie. Accentus chorus. I wasn't sure I really wanted to see Le Postillon de Lonjumeau , but was persuaded to by a sweet old lady living in New York and, ultimately, by the fact that Michael Spyres would be singing the lead. What had put me off for a while was the Opéra Comique's track record in staging cringe-makingly silly, slapstick - and slapdash - productions, as if for imbeciles, of works that deserve better, more intelligent treatment. The right tone is hard to strike, the right degree of knowing complicity with the audience - and...