We left at the interval...

La Monnaie at Bozar, Brussels, Sunday October 19 2025 Conductor: Dmitry Matvienko. Mezzo-soprano: Olesya Petrova. La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra. Photos: credits not found Mussorgsky: A Night on the Bare Mountain , orch. Rimsky-Korsakov. Mussorgsky: Songs and Dances of Death , orch. Shostakovich. Shostakovich: Symphony N°5.  In the last few years, La Monnaie has got into the habit of including a concert in its Sunday matinee subscription series - probably, as times are hard, to save money. But now that Alain Altinoglu has hoisted the house orchestra to unanticipated heights, these concerts have actually become something of an event: quite often, they turn out to be memorable, well worth the trip to Brussels. Sunday's programme of Mussorgsky and Shostakovich involved two names new to me. Timur Zangiev, who conducted Tsar Saltan at La Monnaie in 2023 , had to cancel ‘owing to unforeseen circumstances'. (Visa issues, I heard, though that seems odd when he's been allowed in bef...

ONP Bastille, Thursday April 25 2019 Conductor: Ingo Metzmacher. Production: Krzysztof Warlikowski. Sets and costumes: Małgorzata Szczęśniak. Lighting: Felice Ross. Video: Denis Guéguin. Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov: Dmitry Ulyanov. Zinoviy Borisovich Izmailov: John Daszak. Katerina Lvovna Izmailova: Aušrinė Stundytė. Sergei: Pavel Černoch. Aksinya: Sofija Petrovic. Tattered peasant: Wolfgang Ablinger‑Sperrhacke. Sonyetka: Oksana Volkova. Schoolmaster: Andrei Popov. Priest, Old Convict: Krzysztof Baczyk. Female convict: Marianne Croux. Police Chief: Sava Vemić. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Muddle Instead Of Music Over dinner with friends after Lady Macbeth the other night, we counted off on our fingers the various Warlikowski productions we'd seen over the years, between Paris, Brussels, London and Berlin. Quite a lot it turned out: Iphigénie en Tauride, Věc Makropoulos, King Roger, Parsifal, Macbeth, Médée, The Rake's Progress, Lulu, Don Giov...

ONP Bastille, Wednesday Janary 28 2009 Conductor: Hartmut Haenchen. Production: Martin Kušej. Sets: Martin Zehetgruber. Costumes Heide Kastler: Lighting: Reinhard Traub. Boris Timofeyevich Ismailov: Vladimir Vaneev. Zinoviy Borisovich Ismailov: Ludovit Ludha. Katerina Lvovna Ismailova: Eva-Maria Westbroek. Sergei: Michael König. Aksinya; the female convict: Carole Wilson. The shabby oaf: Alexander Kravets. Sonietka: Lani Poulson. A schoolmaster: Valentin Jar. A priest: Alexander Vassiliev. The chief of police Nikita Storojev. Opéra national de Paris Orchestra and Chorus. Photo: A.T.Schaefer It's remarkable, a friend said to me as we left the Bastille the other evening, how in the last 20 years Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk , previously little-known here, has become a popular smash hit. The ticket touts were out at the metro exits and the house was full, though unfortunately of merciless coughers. This is the ONP's second production. The first, André Engel's, is most often remembe...

Théâtre du Châtelet, Saturday March 10, 2007 Conductor: Tugan Sokhiev. Boris: Alexeï Tanovitski. Zinovyi: Evgeny Akimov. Katerina: Solveig Kringelborn. Sergeï: Vladimir Grishko. Aksinia: Ludmila Dudinova. Shabby Peasant: Vasily Gorushkov. Priest/Old Convict: Ilya Bannik. Sonyetka: Anna Markarova. Police chief: Nikolai Kamensky. Orchestre National de France. Choru of Radio France. This excellent concert provided a perfect illustration, if one were needed, of the anyway obvious point that a singer can’t be judged on the basis of a single performance. Hauled in at the last minute to sing the Marschallin in this season’s jinxed Rosenkavalier , Solveig Kringelborn gave little sign of her acting or vocal capabilities – understandably, under the tense circumstances. She may have given more in the last act, but by then we were already far away having dinner. In Saturday’s Katerina Ismailova she proved to be an outstanding tragic actress, even in an unstaged performance with only a strap...

Opéra National de Paris – Bastille, Tuesday November 15 2005 Conductor: Valery Gergiev. Production: Yuri Alexandrov. Sets: Zinovy Margolin. Costumes: Maria Danilova. Solists, orchestra and chorus of the Mariinski Theatre. I feel very sheepish about this review of Nos or The Nose ( Le Nez here, of course). It’s a rare work in the theatre, and despite my long acquaintance with Shostakovich, one I’d never heard. We had the Mariinski troupe and Gergiev in the pit, and a lavish production in giant, elaborate sets. The curtain went up to reveal a cobbled courtyard, but with the rooftops and chimneys facing the audience, the buildings forming a rectangular “tunnel” in exaggerated perspective and the cobbles projected on a mobile screen at the rear. The barber was suspended on a rope in front of the cobbles. As the opera progressed, the buildings moved in or out, up or down; the roofs opened and closed to reveal here a giant officer, there long banners of newspaper small ads, and the projec...