We left at the interval...

Opéra Comique, Paris, Wednesday February 19 2014 Conductor: Louis Langrée. Production and sets: Stéphane Braunschweig. Costumes: Thibault Vancraenenbroeck. Lighting: Marion Hewlett. Pelléas: Phillip Addis. Mélisande: Karen Vourc'h. Golaud: Laurent Alvaro. Arkel: Jérôme Varnier. Geneviève: Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo. Yniold: Dima Bawab. Un médecin, Le berger, Luc Bertin-Hugault. Accentus chorus. Orchestre des Champs-Élysées. Debussy This is a revival of the Opéra Comique's 2010 production of Pelléas , which I wrote up at the time . I don't, therefore, need to describe the production again. It was after that evening that, at a friend's suggestion, I adopted the present name of my blog. But, like every time - which is why nobody should take any of these reports to heart - this time it was different. Very different, as unusally, I was on the front row, three feet from the pit with an ear, nose and throat specialist's view of the singers' tonsils. Though many ...

ONP Bastille, Friday February 7 2014 Conductor: Carlo Rizzi. Production: Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Sets: Raimund Bauer. Costumes: Andrea Schmidt-Futterer. Lighting: Duane Schuler. Video: Jonas Gerberding. Minnie: Nina Stemme. Jack Rance: Claudio Sgura. Dick Johnson: Rafael Rojas. Nick: Roman Sadnik. Ashby: Andrea Mastroni. Sonora: André Heyboer. Trin: Emanuele Giannino. Sid: Roberto Accurso. Bello: Igor Gnidii. Harry: Eric Huchet. Joe: Rodolphe Briand. Happy: Enrico Marabelli. Larkens: Wenwei Zhang. Billy Jackrabbit: Ugo Rabec. Wowkle: Anna Pennisi. Jake Wallace: Alexandre Duhamel. José Castro: Matteo Peirone. Un Postiglione: Olivier Berg. Un baritono: Daejin Bang. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris.  La Fanciulla , with its weak plot, weird heroine and quaint libretto, which assumes Americans all shout "Hello" when they enter a bar, must be a difficult work to stage credibly (supposing, that is, we may expect opera, exotic and irrational as it is, to be cred...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday February 2 2014 Conductor: Ludovic Morlot. Production and sets: Alvis Hermanis. Costumes: Anna Watkins. Lighting: Gleb Filshtinsky. Video: Ineta Sipunova. Jenůfa: Andrea Danková. Laca Klemeň: Charles Workman. Števa Buryja: Nicky Spence. Kostelnička Buryjovka: Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet. Stařenka Buryjovka: Carole Wilson. Stárek: Ivan Ludlow. Rychtář: Alexander Vassiliev. Rychtářka: Mireille Capelle. Karolka: Hendrickje Van Kerckhove. Pastuchnyňa: Beata Morawska. Jano: Chloé Briot. Barena: Nathalie Van de Voorde. Tetka: Marta Beretta. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Let me see... Janacek was Moravian. So was Mucha. Jenufa is set in a Moravian village. Moravian folk costume is unexpectedly lavish. Kabuki uses lavish costumes and is highly stylised. Mucha and art nouveau were all the rage in Prague at the time. The ballets russes were all the rage elsewhere. Shame they didn't tour to Prague. In Jenufa , the crux of the drama - deep-freezi...

La Monnaie - Salle Malibran, Brussels, Sunday January 19 2014 Conductor: Roger Vignoles. Production: Ted Huffman. Sets and costumes: Samal Blak. Lighting: Marcus Doshi. Thérèse: Aoife Miskelly. Le mari: Timothy McDevitt. La marchande de journaux: Sarah Laulan. La grosse dame: Marie Cubaynes. Lacouf: Romain Pascal. Presto: Ronan Debois. La dame élégante: Julie Mossay. Le gendarme: Guillaume Paire. Le fils: Benjamin Alunni. Le journaliste: Samy Camps. Soprano du choeur: Caroline Jestaedt. Le directeur du théâtre: Mathieu Gardon. Piano: Roger Vignoles, Philippe Riga.  The tickets issued by La Monnaie were for January 18, not January 19 as stated, for "Matinee 2" subscriptions in the subscriptions brochure and, even today, on the website. I had duly bought train tickets for January 19, so I missed Les Mamelles and went to the Magritte Museum instead. That was a revelation. He's even worse than I thought, which is saying something.

Opéra Comique, Paris, Tuesday January 14 2014 Conductor: François-Xavier Roth. Production: Lilo Baur. Sets: Caroline Ginet. Costumes: Hanna Sjödin. Lighting: Gilles Gentner. Choreography: Olia Lydaki. Lakmé: Sabine Devieilhe. Gérald: Frédéric Antoun. Mallika: Élodie Méchain. Nilakantha: Paul Gay. Frédéric: Jean-Sébastien Bou. Ellen: Marion Tassou. Rose, Roxane Chalard. Mistress Bentson: Hanna Schaer. Hadji: Antoine Normand. Un Domben: Laurent Deleuil. Un marchand chinois: David Lefort. Le Kouravar: Jean-Christophe Jacques. Dancers: Mai Ishiwata, Olia Lydaki, Anna Dimitratou. Accentus chorus. Les Siècles orchestra. Delibes As for Einstein on the Beach last week, the black market ticket touts were busy outside the Salle Favart before Lakmé , this time presumably because people were eager to hear Sabine Devieilhe in the "British Airways" flower duet and the bell song. I said not so long ago on Facebook, writing about her Rameau disc, that we'd better all soon le...

Béraud - La Sortie de Théâtre The ever-excellent Parterre Box has found and published the perfect picture for this blog. I reproduce it here.

Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, Friday January 10 2014 Conductor: Michael Riesman. Production, set and lighting design: Robert Wilson. Costumes: Carlos Soto. Lighting: Urs Schönebaum. Sound: Kurt Munkasci. Choreography: Lucinda Childs. With: Helga Davis, Kate Moran, Antoine Silverman, The Lucinda Childs Dance Company, The Philip Glass Ensemble, Einstein on the Beach Chorus. "The amazing thing," said a friend as we left the Théâtre du Châtelet, "is that we've sat through this for four-and-a-half hours, without an interval..." - I wondered where he was heading - "and still weren't bored shitless* like at L'Amour de Loin . Yet that was much shorter". He was right. Einstein on the Beach is a long work and, as when you get to the end of A la recherche du temps perdu , you almost expect a reward: an "I finished Proust" or "I survived Einstein " tee-shirt. But you soon slip into the (very slow) rhythm of it, and the truth is tha...