We left at the interval...

Le Studio - Philharmonie, Paris, Sunday 27 January 2018 Actor/narrator: Eric Ruf. Dancer: Alban Richard. Soloists of the Orchestre de Paris and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. When I was a teenager, on one of my first forays abroad, I had the good fortune to be invited to stay with a cultivated Swiss family in Lausanne, who opened up intriguing new worlds for me. They had real paintings, parquet floors, oriental rugs, a grand piano, and what they called their salon de l’art brut , a spare room kept empty but for their own improvised artworks. They introduced me to the first opera I ever knew and owned on record, Les Mamelles de Tirésias, which would later play a part in my getting into university, as I talked about Apollinaire's play when discussing the theatre of the absurd during my entrance interview. They also introduced me to Stravinsky’s Histoire du Soldat , the words to which the whole family seemed able to chant merrily by heart while it was on their gramophone, (wh...

Studio Marigny, Paris, Sunday January 20 2019 Production, sets, costumes: Lola Kirchner. Lighting: Cyril Monteil. Giraffier, Séraphin: Flannan Obé. Patachon, Fignolet: Raphaël Brémard. Piano: Christophe Manien. In case anyone doesn’t already know: The vocation of the Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de Musique Romantique Française is the rediscovery and international promotion of the French musical heritage of the long nineteenth century (1780-1920). Its interests range from chamber music to the orchestral, sacred and operatic repertories, not forgetting the lighter genres characteristic of the ‘esprit français’ of the nineteenth century (chanson, opéra-comique, operetta). The Centre was inaugurated in 2009 and has its headquarters in a Venetian palazzo dating from 1695 which was specially restored for this purpose. [From the Bru-Zane website] Over the past few years, I’ve enjoyed rediscovering some rare French operas through Bru Zane’s recordings, so I was glad to see they wer...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday December 23 2018 Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Production and costumes: Laurent Pelly. Sets: Chantal Thomas. Lighting: Duane Schuler. Don Pasquale: Pietro Spagnoli. Dottor Malatesta: Rodion Pogossov. Ernesto: Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani. Norina: Anne-Catherine Gillet. Un Notaro: Alessandro Abis. La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Like Beethoven advising Rossini but at my much less exalted level, I'd be quite happy if Donizetti had stuck to comic operas. Laurent Pelly's production of Don Pasquale , already seen in San Diego and Barcelona, was an unpretentiously and undemandingly good-humoured way to end the operatic year just before Christmas. The set was simple: Don Pasquale's house in the middle of a square, with, to right and left, walls of doors, windows and shutters, all grey, and to the rear, nothing. The house rotated to reveal the Don's living room, bare but for his high, button-backed leather armchair and an elaborate cent...

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...

WNO at Birmingham Hippodrome, Saturday November 17 2018 Conductor: Tomáš Hanus. Production: David Pountney. Sets: Robert Innes Hopkins. Costumes: Marie-Jeanne Lecca. Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth. Video: David Haneke. Andrei: Jonathan McGovern. Natasha: Lauren Michelle. Pierre: Mark Le Brocq. Princess Marie Akrossimova, Princess Marya, Aide de Camp de Murat, Mavra Kuzminichna: Leah-Marian Jones. Hélène, Prince Eugène’s Aide de Camp, Dunyasha: Jurgita Adamonytė. Anatole, First General, Kutuzov’s Aide de Camp, Bonnet, Barclay: Adrian Dwyer. Count Rostov, Tichon, Berthier, Ramballe, Beningsen: James Platt. Old Prince Bolkonsky: Jonathan May. Jacquot, Second General, General Belliard, Yermolov: Donald Thomson. Dolokhov, Denisov, Napoleon, Raevsky: David Stout. Balaga, Kutuzov, Davout: Simon Bailey. Sonya, Peronskaya, Kondratyevna: Samantha Price. Servant, Dr Métivier: Julian Boyce. Housemaid, Vasilisa: Carolyn Jackson. Valet, Gavrila, Matveyev: Laurence Cole. Joseph: George Newton-Fitzgeral...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Tuesday October 9 2018 Conductor: Valery Gergiev. Pianist: Denis Matsuev. Wiener Philharmoniker Prokofiev Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet: Montagues and Capulets Juliet as a Young Girl Masks Romeo at the Tomb of Juliet Concerto pour piano n° 2 op. 16 Symphony n° 6 op. 111 This concert with the VPO under Gergiev had a markedly different temperature (or perhaps the word is temperament) from the one last week with the Philharmonia under Salonen. While both were virtuoso performances, naturally, Salonen’s was relatively cool and restrained and the Philharmonia’s sound overall was what I called “matter of fact”, while Gergiev’s thermometer went frequently up to red hot and occasionally - as in the angular (“constructivist”, the programme notes suggested) 6th symphony - white and, just as I said Salonen was not, paroxystic. Yet Gergiev can also do meltingly tender when the work calls for it. As I remarked later to an old lady livin...