We left at the interval...

Opéra Comique, Paris, Wednesday April 29 2009 Conductor: William Lacey. Production & costumes: Laurent Pelly. Henri de Valois, roi de Pologne : Jean-Sébastien Bou. Minka : Magali Léger. Le duc de Fritelli Franck Leguérinel. Alexina, duchesse de Fritelli : Sophie Marin-Degor. Le comte de Nangis : Gordon Gietz. Laski, grand palatin : Nabil Suliman. Chorus of the Opéra national de Lyon. Orchestre de Paris. Photo: Elisabeth Carecchio I was really enjoying Laurent Pelly’s production of Le Roi Malgré Lui the other night. Pelly’s a favourite of mine – for his Offenbachs, for his Platée … - and here he was at his best: fast, funny and finely-tuned, every step and gesture, every smile and frown and grimace in place. The basic idea wasn’t a new one: the curtain rose to reveal the brickwork and steel doors of the Opéra Comique’s bare stage, familiar already from the recent Zoroastre ; and cast, stagehands and chorus arrived for a rehearsal to find, to their amazement, a full house waiting to...

Opéra Comique, Paris, Wednesday December 19, 2007 Conductor: Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Production: Macha Makeïeff and Jérôme Deschamps. Sets and Costumes: Macha Makeïeff. Lazuli: Stéphanie d’Oustrac. La Princesse Laoula: Anne-Catherine Gillet. Aloès: Blandine Staskiewicz. Le Roi Ouf 1er: Jean-Luc Viala. Hérisson de Porc Epic: Christophe Gay. Siroco: Jean-Philippe Lafont. Tapioca: François Piolino. Comic actors: Jean-Marc Bihour, Philippe Leygnac and Patrice Thibaud. The Monteverdi Choir, L’Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. For many years, Offenbach productions in France were of two equally unsuccessful kinds: grim, humourless, black-leather “Berlin” deconstructions or, more often, a sort of amateur-British-panto style, faux-naïf and filled with clichés and hopelessly unfunny “gags” (often also sung to arrangements for a kind of Broadway ensemble) talked up – this being France, where Jerry Lewis is not only “knighted” for his services to arts and letters but also a Commander of t...