We left at the interval...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Wednesday May 27 2015 Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen. Piano: Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Ondes Martenot: Valérie Hartmann-Claverie. Philharmonia Orchestra.  Messiaen The Philharmonia's Turangalîla under Salonen on Wednesday evening came across, from where I was sitting, as a massive display of scorching orchestral fire-power: the brass and percussion blasting away like heavy artillery at the rear, the dry English woodwind's lighter artillery and the searing, steely siren sounds of the strings in the middle, and at the front, celesta and glockenspiel scattering gleaming, ear-piercing shrapnel, the wailing shells of the ondes Martenot, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard manning a one-man machine gun battery, shooting off salvos of bullets with deadly accuracy and taking no prisoners. Tempi were relatively brisk, Messiaen's sudden silences were deafeningly abrupt, the overall effect was more martial than loving, and apart from brief moments of respite, ...

Opéra National de Paris – Bastille: October 20 2004 Conductor: Sylvain Cambreling. Production: Stanislas Nordey. L'Ange: Christine Schäfer. Saint François: José Van Dam. Le Lépreux: Chris Merritt. Frère Léon: Brett Polegato. Frère Massée: Charles Workman. Frère Elie: Christoph Homberger. Frère Bernard: Roland Bracht. Frère Sylvestre: Guillaume Antoine. Frère Ruffin: David Bizic. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. To some extent, Paris was lying in wait for this new production of St François , the third since 1983. It raised questions that added fuel to simmering disgruntlement with the new management. Did we really need a new production, not actually having had the opportunity to tire of Peter Sellar’s very good (and no doubt expensive) 1992 one? Was it wise to programme so many performances? Why two 40-minute intermissions, leading to a six-hour evening starting at 5.30 p.m. even on weekdays – and to about one third of empty seats? Even the first night was more s...