We left at the interval...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Tuesday May 21, 2024 (In concert) Conductor: Francesco Corti. Berenice: Sandrine Piau. Selene: Ann Hallenberg. Alessandro: Arianna Vendittelli. Demetrio: Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian. Arsace: Rémy Brès-Feuillet. Fabio: Matthew Newlin. Aristobolo: John Chest. Il Pomo d’Oro. Photo: Stéphane Asseline, Région Ile-de-France This concert performance of  Berenice, with Il Pomo d'Oro under Francesco Corti, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées last Tuesday was outstanding - in a way, unexpectedly so, as it seems to be assumed that because the work is now rare, it must be because it's weak. Is it dogged by its poor initial reception? It turns out (I'd never heard it before) there's absolutely nothing wrong with the score: a string of beautifully-crafted arias, as skilful, imaginative and varied as you'd expect from mature Händel, from the outset. For example, Berenice's first aria has an intriguing, 'shifting' accompaniment, and next t...

ONP Paris Garnier, Monday February 12 2024 Conductor: Harry Bicket. Production and Costumes: Laurent Pelly. Sets: Chantal Thomas. Lighting: Joël Adam. Giulio Cesare: Gaëlle Arquez. Cleopatra: Lisette Oropesa. Sesto: Emily D'Angelo. Cornelia: Wiebke Lehmkuhl. Tolomeo: Iestyn Davies. Achilla: Luca Pisaroni. Nireno: Rémy Brès. Curio: Adrien Mathonat. Orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris. Unikanti Chorus. Photos: Vincent Pontet/ONP This Cesare is a reprise of Laurent Pelly's 2011 production, which I wrote about at the time. For a description of his staging, click through here and scroll down to 'The production is a new one, by Laurent Pelly.' Having seen it again this week, I feel less positive about it than I did at the time. But (a little bit) more of that later. So now, all I have to do is write about the musical aspects. I have, however, an impediment. In the first act, every time Emily d'Angelo sang, her voice came with what in French would be called a '...

ONP Garnier, Thursday May 18 2023 Conductor: Harry Bicket. Production, sets and lighting: Robert Carsen. Sets and costumes: Luis F. Carvalho. Lighting: Peter Van Praet. Choreography: Nicolas Paul. Ariodante: Emily D'Angelo. Il re di Scozia: Matthew Brook. Ginevra: Olga Kulchynska. Lurcanio: Eric Ferring. Polinesso: Christophe Dumaux. Dalinda: Tamara Banjesevic. Odoardo: Enrico Casari. The English Concert. Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Photos: Agathe Poupeney/ONP After some delay owing to strikes over pension reform (which doesn't actually affect the ONP's special régime , so I suppose they just went out in sympathy), the Paris Opera now has a good-looking new production of Ariodante by Robert Carsen, characteristically detailed and professionally directed, more entertaining than searchingly profound or moving, with a strikingly well-balanced, equally professional cast. It might be summed up as 'the Windsors at Balmoral.' The sets reproduce, full scale or m...

Auditorio Nacional, Madrid, Sunday February 26 2023 Conductor: Harry Bicket. Solomon: Ann Hallenberg. Solomon's Queen and First Harlot: Miah Persson. Queen of Sheba: Elena Villalón. Zadok: James Way. A Levite: Brandon Cedel. Second Harlot: Niamh O'Sullivan. The English Concert. The Clarion Choir. Ann Hallenberg has no engagements in France this year, so although recently back from an expensive trip to Los Angeles, I decided to bite the bullet and go to Madrid for the weekend to hear this Solomon . 'It's only money,' as a late friend used to trill: plaie d'argent n'est pas mortelle , as the French say, though sometimes it can be painful for a while. Living in France, I'm used to Händel by the likes of Christie, Minkowski, Rousset or Haïm. This was my first live encounter with Harry Bicket's English approach. I suspect he isn't everybody's cup of tea, as by 'HIP' standards, he goes - or at any rate went on Sunday evening - for a big, or...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Wednesday May 11 2022. Conductor: Philippe Jaroussky. Production: Damiano Michieletto. Choreography: Thomas Wilhelm. Sets: Paolo Fantin. Costumes: Agostino Cavalca. Lighting: Alessandro Carletti. Giulio Cesare: Gaëlle Arquez. Cleopatra: Sabine Devieilhe. Sesto: Franco Fagioli. Cornelia: Lucile Richardot. Tolomeo: Carlo Vistoli. Achilla: Francesco Salvadori. Nireno: Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian. Curio: Adrien Fournaison. Ensemble Artaserse. Photos: Vincent Pontet I no longer have a subscription at the TCE, having decided, after several years there, it hadn't been good value for money. But an opera expert I know said he thought the cast of this Giulio Cesare was 'intriguing' and a friend who's a Händel fan wanted to see it, so along I went with him. I guess what was 'intriguing' about it was the mix of vocal stars with others already  marked out as promising, and Jaroussky conducting a staged opera for the first time from the pit. T...

Badische Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Tuesday March 1 2022 Conductor: Lars Ulrik Mortensen. Production: Floris Visser. Sets and Costumes: Gideon Davey. Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth. Hercules: Brandon Cedel. Dejanira: Ann Hallenberg. Iole: Lauren Lodge-Campbell. Hyllus: Moritz Kallenberg. Lichas: James Hall. Händel Festival Choir. German Händel Soloists. Production photos: Falk von Traubenberg For various reasons to do with the production, acoustics and casting, Hercules at Karlsruhe's 44th International Händel Festival turned out to be a frustrating experience.   Not that the production is weak. On the contrary, it's logical and thought-through, detailed and carefully rehearsed - almost as much a directorial tour de force as Jonathan Kent's Fairy Queen . The action starts during the overture with Dejanira in a strait-jacket in her bedroom, grasping at constellations mapped out on the walls, as if searching for her late husband. It alternates between flashbacks and courtroom scen...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Monday November 22 2021 Conductor: Maxim Emelyanychev. Theodora: Lisette Oropesa. Irene: Joyce DiDonato. Septimius: Michael Spyres. Valens: John Chest. Didymus: Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian. Messenger: Massimo Lombardi. Orchestra and chorus: Il Pomo d'Oro.   Only the other day I was telling someone how much I still enjoy Johannes Somary's recordings of Händel, with what now seem 'old-school' Händelians like Sheila Armstrong, Felicity Palmer, Helen Watts and Robert Tear, and the harpsichord banging away like a Bösendorfer. But since then, over the years the 'HIP' movement has largely got us used (or should I say 'inured'?), in France at any rate, to a different kind of voice in pre-1760 opera, so to find Lisette Oropesa, Joyce DiDonato and Michael Spyres cast in Theodora now comes as a surprise, especially with a 'HIP' band like Il Pomo d'Oro. It seemed too good to be true, but true it was, so I bought tickets a...

Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville, Thursday February 13 2020 Conductor: Enrico Onofri. Production: Mariame Clément with Marcos Darbyshire. Sets and costumes: Julia Hansen. Lighting: Bernd Purkrabek. Videos: fettFim. Claudio: Matthew Brook. Agrippina: Ann Hallenberg. Nerone: Renata Pokupic. Poppea: Alicia Amo. Ottone: Xavier Sabata. Pallante: Joao Fernandes. Narciso: Antonio Giovannini. Lesbo: Valeriano Lanchas. Giunone: Serena Perez. Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla. I already saw Mariame Clément's production of Agrippina , revived in Seville by Marcos Darbyshire, in Ghent in 2012 , so I don't need to describe it in detail again here. It seemed to me somehow fresher-looking in Seville and I wondered if the sets had been rebuilt or repainted since, but apparently not. Maybe, someone close to the production suggested, it just looked better on the more spacious stage. I also found I'd forgotten how full it was, from beginning to end, of well-timed comic detail - useful, as ...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Wednesday April 3 2019 Conductor: Harry Bicket. Semele: Brenda Rae. Ino/Juno: Elizabeth DeShong. Jupiter: Benjamin Hulett. Cadmus/Somnus: Soloman Howard. Athamas: Christopher Lowrey. Iris: Ailish Tynan. The English Concert. The Clarion Choir. After this concert, I had a discussion online with a soprano who has twins about how pregnancy may affect a singer’s singing. There's no telling, it seems: it varies from singer to singer and sometimes actually helps. Brenda Rae was quite evidently pregnant, and I wondered whether her surprising and rather frustrating restraint as Semele was due to her condition or just to her holding back for stylistic reasons. She only really let rip in 'Myself I shall adore', which was loudly applauded, but sang the admittedly unreasonable 'No, no, I’ll take no less', which ought to crown a soprano’s evening, practically through gritted teeth and so to less applause. Perhaps Harry Bicket was respon...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Tuesday March 27 2018 Conductor: Andres Gabetta. Julia Lezhneva, soprano. Franco Fagioli, counter-tenor. Cappella Gabetta. Vivaldi: Concerto for strings and continuo RV 156 Porpora: Motet "In caelo stelle care" Ragazzi: Sonata for violin and orchestra Op.1 No.8 Vivaldi: Nisi Dominus Pergolesi: Stabat Mater P77. "Most countertenors, Italians more than others, look like vegan consumptives on a bad day and sound - if you can hear them at all - like gas escaping from a (small) pipe," I wrote in 2013. Fortunately, it doesn't apply to all of them. Franco Fagioli is a case in point. I had noted, writing about a Giulio Cesare at the Champs Elysées in 2006, that "Franco Fagioli was the right kind of 'stage animal' counter-tenor to give us a petulant, if not always accurate, Tolomeo." Ten years later, I saw him as Cavalli's Eliogabalo at Garnier: "Franco Fagioli was most impressive in his rich and...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Friday March 16 2018 Conductor: Emmanuelle Haïm. Production: Christof Loy. Choreography: Thomas Wilhelm. Sets: Johannes Leiacker. Costumes: Ursula Renzenbrink. Lighting: Bernd Purkrabek. Alcina: Cecilia Bartoli. Ruggiero: Philippe Jaroussky. Morgana: acted by Julie Fuchs, sung by Emöke Barath. Bradamante: Varduhi Abrahamyan. Oronte: Christoph Strehl. Melisso: Krzysztof Bączyk. Cupido: Barbara Goodman. Orchestra and Chorus of the Concert d’Astrée. A glance at the above will reveal that this Alcina 's star-studded cast involved one more star than expected: Julie Fuchs acted the part, but the excellent Emöke Barath sang it beautifully from the pit, and it was her "Tornami a vagheggiar" in particular that accounted for the loud, long applause at the end of the first act. I am actually at work all this weekend but, as I already had my ticket, was allowed out on parole to see this show. As I don't have much free time, I'm going ...