We left at the interval...

ONP Bastille, Wednesday February 9 2011. Conductor: Daniel Oren. Production: Giancarlo Del Monaco. Sets: Carlo Centolavigna. Costumes: Maria Filippi. Francesca: Svetla Vassileva. Samaritana: Louise Callinan. Ostasio: Wojtek Smilek. Giovanni Lo Sciancato: George Gagnidze. Paolo Il Bello: Roberto Alagna. Malatestino dall’Occhio: William Joyner. Biancofiore: Grazia Lee. Garsenda: Manuela Bisceglie. Altichiara: Andrea Hill. Adonella: Carol Garcia. La Schiava: Cornelia Oncioiu. Ser Toldo Berardengo: Alexandre Kravets. Il Giullare: Yuri Kissin. Il Torrigiano: Alexandre Duhamel. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Perhaps there are people who are fond of the corny conventions of what the French call “papa’s opera” in the same way dance fans are fond of the conventions of romantic ballet. The Met has regulars after all. Nicolas Joel, the boss of the Paris Opera, would seem to be one and Giancarlo del Monaco, described by a French critic as “not just conservative but react...

Opéra Comique, Paris, Thursday February 3, 2011 Conductor: Tugan Sokhiev. Production: Martin Duncan. Sets and costumes: Alison Chitty. Lighting: Paul Pyant. Choreography: Ben Wright. Don Jerome: Brian Galliford. Ferdinand: Garry Magee. Louisa: Anastasia Kalagina. The Duenna: Larissa Diadkova. Don Antonio: Daniil Shtoda. Clara d’Almanza: Anna Kiknadze. Mendoza: Mikhail Kolelishvili. Don Carlos: Yuri Vorobiev. Padre Augustin: Eduard Tsanga. Father Elustaf/ 1st Masker: Vasily Efimov. Father Chartreuse/ 2nd Masker: Marek Kalbus. Father Benedictine/ 3rd Masker: Mischa Schelomianski. Lauretta: Eleonora Vindau. Orchestra and chorus of the Capitole de Toulouse. It’s been a long time since I trundled out my threadbare line that opera-going is a triumph of hope over experience. I just browsed back through my reports to see when I last had a really fantastic evening at the opera and lo and behold, it was almost exactly a year ago in the same house, the Salle Favart, for The Fairy Queen . But I al...

ONP Palais Garnier, Tuesday February 1 2011 Conductor: Emmanuelle Haïm. Production and costumes: Laurent Pelly. Sets: Chantal Thomas. Lighting: Joël Adam. Giulio Cesare: Lawrence Zazzo. Cornelia :Varduhi Abrahamyan. Sesto: Isabel Leonard. Cleopatra: Natalie Dessay. Tolomeo: Christophe Dumaux. Achilla: Nathan Berg. Nireno: Dominique Visse. Curio: Aimery Lefèvre. Orchestra of the Concert d'Astrée, Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. I thought this midnight exchange of e-mails after Giulio Cesare might, as it sums up my first impressions, do as a start to my write-up: Friend : So how was it? Dessay finally on form? Me : My first thought: very good cast in theatre too big for them. I.e. not voiceless wonders à la Christie at all, but Garnier too big - and the production didn't help, with them often singing from the middle (i.e. not the front) of the stage with no sets behind. Second thought: to me, Haim takes too many liberties with the score, yet at the same time, overall, ...

Opéra Comique, Paris, Wednesday January 12 2011 Conductor: Ludovic Morlot. Production, sets and costumes: Macha Makeïeff. Lighting: Pascal Mérat. Choreography: Thomas Stache. Thérèse/La Cartomancienne: Hélène Guilmette. Le Mari: Ivan Ludlow. Le Directeur de théâtre/Le Gendarme: Werner Van Mechelen. Presto: Christophe Gay. Lacouf: Loïc Felix. Le Journaliste parisien: Thomas Morris. Le Fils: Marc Molomot. La Marchande de journaux: Jeannette Fischer. Actor: Robert Horn. Orchestra and Chorus of the Lyon Opera. Les Mamelles de Tirésias was, thanks to friends, the first opera I ever knew by heart. It introduced me to Apollinaire and taught me how to say “combine harvester” (and much more) in French. I continue to find it a more interesting work – words and music – by far than Dialogues des Carmélites . And those who dismiss it as a “bit of fluff” (it has happened) might read what Poulenc had to say about it: “I do believe I prefer this work to everything else I wrote… If people want to ...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday December 19 2010 Conductor: Carlo Rizzi. Production: Andreas Homoki. Sets (what sets?): Hartmut Meyer. Costumes: Mechthild Seipel. Mimi: Ermonela Jaho. Musetta: Anne-Catherine Gillet. Rodolfo: Giuseppe Filianoti. Marcello: Massimo Cavalletti. Schaunard: Lauri Vasar. Colline: Giovanni Battista Parodi. Parpignol: Marc Coulon. Benoît: Jacques Does. Not being a fan of La Bohème , I’d never given the plot and characters much thought. Being paid to do it, however, Andreas Homoki has. His production, now in Brussels, raises a couple of interesting points that had never struck me before. First, “Bohemians” were really what are now called "bobos." We can assume that, as young painters, poets, musicians and philosophers, they were children of the bourgeoisie; and there’s little doubt that they aspired to material success, even if they set out to épater their class. Second, that being so, there’s every likelihood that, once success was upon them, they would...

ONP Bastille, Thursday November 25 2010 Conductor: Christoph Eschenbach. Production: Olivier Py. Sets & costumes: Pierre-André Weitz. Albrecht von Brandenburg: Scott Mac Allister. Mathis: Matthias Goerne. Lorenz von Pommersfelden: Thorsten Grümbel. Wolfgang Capito: Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke. Riedinger: Gregory Reinhart. Hans Schwalb: Michael Weinius. Truchsess von Waldburg: Antoine Garcin. Sylvester von Schaumberg: Eric Huchet. Ursula: Melanie Diener. Regina: Martina Welschenbach. Die Gräfin von Helfenstein: Nadine Weissmann. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. My preconceived ideas are nearly always wrong. I suppose I’ll even end up on my deathbed, like a character in Mauriac or Waugh, copping out and making the sign of the cross. How many times have I started a report by saying an evening at the opera turned out either better or worse than I expected? And how come, having said so many times we should expect nothing (never to be disappointed), I go on havi...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday November 7 2010 Conductor: Leo Hussain. Production: Andrea Breth. Sets: Annette Murschetz. Costumes: Silke Willrett, Marc Weeger. Savjol Prokofjevič Dikoj: Pavlo Hunka. Boris Grigorjevič: Kurt Streit. Marfa Ignatẻvna Kabanová (Kabanicha): Renée Morloc. Tichon Ivanyč Kabanov: John Graham-Hall. Katerina (Kát’a): Evelyn Herlitzius. Váňa Kudrjáš: Gordon Gietz. Varvara: Natascha Petrinsky. Orchestra and chorus of La Monnaie. A friend of mine, complaining about a change of boss, once said: “They didn’t break the mould when they appointed him, it just got mouldier.” Until I actually checked, a week before, I’d supposed that La Monnaie was reviving Christoph Marthaler’s grungy but interesting “council flats” production of Katia Kabanova . It turned out that, though the Marthaler show wasn’t all that long ago, they’d asked Andrea Breth, a famous German director, to do a new one. In this case, it didn’t break the mould, but it was grungier - and less interesting (by ...