We left at the interval...

ONP Bastille, Wednesday November 21 2018 Conductor: Fabio Luisi. Production: Calixto Bieito. Sets: Susanne Gschwender. Costumes: Ingo Krügler. Lighting: Michael Bauer. Video: Sarah Derendinger. Simon Boccanegra: Ludovic Tézier. Jacopo Fiesco: Mika Kares. Maria Boccanegra (Amelia Grimaldi): Maria Agresta. Gabriele Adorno: Francesco Demuro. Paolo Albani: Nicola Alaimo. Pietro: Mikhail Timoshenko. Un capitano dei balestrieri: Cyrille Lovighi. Un'ancella di Amelia: Virginia Leva-Poncet. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. The gist of most of the reviews I've seen of Paris's new Boccanegra has been "good singing, bad production", with headlines such as: Sur une mer d'ennui (“on a sea of boredom”) Great voices suffer at the hands of merciless director Panne sèche (“out of fuel”). Des voix superbes sauvent une mise en scène médiocre (“superb voices save a mediocre production”) En fond de cale (“in the bilge”) and my favourite, not tha...

ONP Bastille, Tuesday May 23, 2006 Conductor: Sylvain Cambreling. Production: Johan Simons. Sets: Bert Neumann. Costumes: Nina von Mechow. Simon Boccanegra: Carlos Alvarez. Jacopo Fiesco: Ferruccio Furlanetto. Maria Boccanegra (Amelia Grimaldi): Ana Maria Martinez. Paolo Albiani: Franck Ferrari. Gabriele Adorno: Stefano Secco. Pietro: Nicolas Testé. Orchestra and chorus of the Opéra national de Paris. Vocal types seem to go in waves and we aren’t, at the moment, in a Verdi period. Though hope springs eternal in the operagoer’s battered wallet, as the lights go down for an evening of Verdi, your expectations are lowered as well. So I’m delighted to report that, last Tuesday at the Bastille, much to my surprise I felt the thrill of goose pimples more than once. The Opéra national put together a very strong cast for this “men’s opera” and found a young soprano who will be worth keeping an eye on. Alvarez’ solid, impassioned baritone contrasted well with Furlanetto’s vast, clear, cavernou...