We left at the interval...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday December 28 2025 Conductor: George Petrou. Production: Christophe Coppens. Sets: Christophe Coppens & I.S.M.Architecten. Lighting: Peter Van Praet. Video: Supersauce - Georgie Pin. Pollione: Enea Scala. Oroveso: Alexander Vinogradov. Norma: Sally Matthews. Adalgisa: Raffaella Lupinacci. Clotilde: Lisa Willems. Flavio: Alexander Marev. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Photos: Simon Van Rompay This production of Norma at La Monnaie is one that was hit, like many at the time, by Covid. When it was performed in front of an audience, in December 2021, vaccination certificates and masks were required, strict social distancing was in force, and few people could, as a result, actually get seats. (As I remember, in Belgium, the maximum audience per house was set at 200.) It was streamed instead. Now it’s back, with much the same cast - and no pandemic. Sally Matthews is a regular at La Monnaie, and La Monnaie is where I’ve always seen her, except for the...

 

Théâtre de l’Athénée-Louis Jouvet, Paris, Wednesday December 17, 2025 Conductor: Sammy El Ghadab. Production: Sol Espeche. Sets: Oria Puppo. Costumes: Sabine Schlemmer. Choreography: Aurélie Mouilhade, Karine Girard. Lighting: Simon Demeslay. Faust: Charles Mesrine. Marguerite: Anaïs Merlin. Méphisto: Mathilde Ortscheidt. Valentin: Philippe Brocard. Patrick Lepion: Maxime Le Gall. With: Céleste Lejeune, Camille Brault, Louise Pingeot, Lucile Komitès, Guillaume Beaudoin, Mathieu Septier, Max Latarjet, Célian d'Auvigny, Charles Fraisse. Orchestra: Les Frivolités Parisiennes. Photos (with slightly different cast): Marie Pétry Fewer than eighteen months separate Hervé’s Le petit Faust (1869) from Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoé (1867), which I saw and wrote about just two weeks ago . There are some parallels, in the gestation, between them. Both composers were out to impress: Offenbach needed a success at the Opéra Comique after the flop there, in 1860, of Barkouf ; Hervé sought to impre...

None of the recordings in the latest issue of France’s Opéra Magazine is designated their 'pick of the month.' I don’t know if this is because the new editor has decided against it for good, or if it’s just because their Christmas-gift suggestions have taken the place, in this edition, of the customary ‘ coup de coeur ’.  The gift suggestions can’t have taken much thought. They are Joan Sutherland’s complete Decca opera recordings, 1959-1970 (49 CDs), Jonas Kaufmann’s Decca recordings (15 CDs), Andreas Scholl’s ‘legendary’ Harmoni Munci recitals (6 CDs), and a set issued by Alpha Classics as a tribute to the late Jodie Devos (7 CDs).  They give their tip-top ‘Diamond’ award to two CD sets.  The first, which also comes with a DVD, is Porpora’s Polifemo , with José Coca Loza, Franco Fagioli, Julia Lezhneva, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, Eléonore Pancrazi and the orchestra of the Opéra Royal (i.e. in Versailles) under Stefan Plewniak. ‘If any single opera can be said to epito...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées (TCE), Paris, Wednesday December 3 2025 Conductor: Marc Minkowski. Production and Costumes: Laurent Pelly.Sets: Chantal Thomas.Lighting: Michel Le Borgne. Robinson: Sahy Ratia. Edwige: Julie Fuchs. Vendredi: Adèle Charvet. Sir William Crusoé: Laurent Naouri. Toby: Marc Mauillon. Jim-Cocks: Rodolphe Briand. Suzanne: Emma Fekete. Deborah: Julie Pasturaud. Atkins: Matthieu Toulouse. Extras: Dan Azoulay, Antoine Lafon, José-Maria Mantilla, Pascal Oumakhlouf. Les Musiciens du Louvre, accentus choir. Photos: Vincent Pontet This article will begin with a bit of background chat about Laurent Pelly and Marc Minkowski’s ‘partnership’ over many years, and as it’s a rarity, about Robinson Crusoé . This can just be skipped if you aren’t interested. Many of us have been grateful over the years for all the pleasure, the sheer enjoyment brought to us by the Pelly-Minkowski ‘duo’, starting more than two decades ago with memorable productions - live, on disc and DVD - of Offen...

ONP Bastille, Paris, Monday November 24 2025 Conductor: Pablo Heras-Casado. Production: Calixto Bieito. Sets: Rebecca Ringst. Costumes: Ingo Krügler. Lighting: Michael Bauer. Video: Sarah Derendinger. Siegmund: Stanislas de Barbeyrac. Wotan: James Rutherford. Hunding: Günther Groissböck. Sieglinde: Elza van den Heever. Brünnhilde: Tamara Wilson. Fricka: Eve-Maud Hubeaux. Gerhilde: Louise Foor. Ortlinde: Laura Wilde. Waltraute: Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur. Schwertleite: Katharina Magiera. Helmwige: Jessica Faselt. Siegrune: Ida Aldrian. Grimgerde: Marvic Monreal. Rossweisse: Marie-Luise Dreßen. Orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris. E-doggy robot dog by Evotech. Photos: ONP/Herwig Prammer   What is it Anna Russell says, in her famous analysis of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs ? ‘So Wotan knows the curse is working.’ It certainly seems to be working on Calixto Bieito’s Ring in Paris. Das Rheingold, earlier this year, fielded four-and-a-half to five different Wotans: Iain Pate...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées (TCE), Paris Wednesday November 6 2025 Conductor: Jakob Lehmann. Production, sets, and costumes: Silvia Costa, assisted by Laura Ketels, Ama Tomberli, Simon Hatab, Michele Taborelli. Lighting: Marco Giusti. Faust: Benjamin Bernheim. Marguerite: Victoria Karkacheva. Méphistophélès: Christian Van Horn. Brander: Thomas Dolié. Les Siècles orchestra. Radio France chorus and children's choir. Photos: Vincent Pontet Silvia Costa has been around long enough, assisting Romeo Castellucci and directing films, plays and operas herself, to have won an artistic knighthood in France as a ‘Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres’, but this Damnation was my first experience of her work, and proved baffling. As with Shirin Neshat’s recent Aida , I’ll start by outlining the production, as its weaknesses impacted the musical side of the evening. This bald outline should also give those not present an insight into why , without preparation, I found the staging baffling, but of cou...

I was still on holiday in Greece when the latest two issues of France's Opéra Magazine arrived, so I found them in the pile of post waiting for me when I got home a couple of weeks ago. The first was marked ‘Septembre 2025’ as normal. The second, marked ‘Octobre-Novembre 2025’, announced out of the blue, in its editorial, that ‘In order to provide you with more in-depth articles, more substantial investigations and richer information, we will now be publishing every two months.’ A cheeky bit of spin, I think, from a magazine that’s recently changed hands and, so I understand, since then lost or fired most of its staff. Their ‘coup de coeur’ - i.e. their top pick - in September, with one of their special ‘Diamond’ awards, was Dido and Aeneas with Joyce DiDonato and Michael Spyres under Emelyanchev, dubbed a new ‘reference’ and ‘set to be seen as a landmark recording.’ It doesn't happen often, but their top pick in the October-November, again with one of their ‘Diamonds’, is a ...

ONP-Bastille, Wednesday October 22 2025 Conductor: Dmitry Matvienko. Production: Shirin Neshat. Sets: Christian Schmidt. Costumes: Tatyana van Walsum. Lighting: Felice Ross. Choreography: Dustin Kline. Aida: Ewa Płonka. Radames: Gregory Kunde. Amneris: Judit Kutasi. Amonasro: Roman Burdenko. Ramfis: Alexander Köpeczi. Il Re: Krzysztof Bączyk. Un messaggero: Manase Latu. Sacerdotessa: Margarita Polonskaya. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Photos (featuring first cast): Bernd Uhlig/ONP When the Paris Opera staged Olivier Py’s production of Aida in 2013, it was their first since 1968, in one that dated back to 1939. Since then, they’ve made up for their omission. Py’s (to me, not as bad as people said) made it through just two seasons, until 2016. Lotte de Beer’s , with its luxury cast, in 2021, which I found quite entertaining though thousands didn’t, apparently succumbed to the pandemic. Now, in 2025, we have a revised ‘edition’, as she herself puts it, of Shirin Ne...