5 great opera-concerts at TCE: (3) Pelléas et Mélisande

Pelléas et Mélisande (in concert), Théâtre des Champs Elysées, April 17 2011

Simon Keenlyside, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Natalie Dessay, Louis Langrée, and Laurent Naouri

Louis Langrée ..... Conductor 

Natalie Dessay ...... Mélisande
Simon Keenlyside .....  Pelléas
Marie-Nicole Lemieux ..... Geneviève
Laurent Naouri ..... Golaud
Alain Vernhes ..... Arkel
Khatouna Gadelia ..... Yniold
Nahuel di Pierro .....  Le Médecin

Chœur de l'Orchestre de Paris
Orchestre de Paris

Giulio Cesare in Egypt

Giulio Cesare, Opéra Garnier in Paris, January 17 2011

Emmanuelle Haïm    ..... Conductor
Laurent Pelly ..... Stage director and costumes

Lawrence Zazzo ..... Giulio Cesare
Varduhi Abrahamyan ..... Cornelia
Isabel Leonard ..... Sesto
Natalie Dessay ..... Cleopatra
Christophe Dumaux ..... Tolomeo
Nathan Berg ..... Achille
Dominique Visse ..... Nireno
Aimery Lefèvre ..... Curio

Orchestre du Concert d'Astrée and Paris Opera Chorus

Quatuor Ebène, Natalie Dessay, Stacey Kent, Luz Casal

Quatuor Ebène usually end their concerts with something jazzy as an encore, and those improvisations became very popular with fans -- which is why they recently released a CD called Fiction with special appearances of Natalie Dessay [who sings in her normal voice], Stacey Kent, and Luz Casal.

Tomorrow, November 15 @ 20:00 (cet) at Folies Bergère in Paris all these artists will perform with Yours Truly in the audience. Good news is that all of you guys can see and listen to the same concert thanks to the medici.tv portal who will provide  live-webcast on this link. It's free but you have to register (if you didn't already).

Pelléas et Mélisande: from Natalie with Love

Pelléas et Mélisande is one of those delicate operas; it requires a special care and skills from the director to handle a tricky balance between the dramatic action and a perpetual interplay of symbols with music. If you surf on its libretto only, you are almost guaranteed to get a pretentious waves of boredom.

This opera is a touch of genius. Like most of his contemporaries, Claude Debussy loved Wagner but not to the point that it would impede his own creativity. His music and his dramatic instincts are maybe close to what Wagner did in Parsifal, but Debussy humanized those dramatic instincts by making them more intimate. The collateral effect --that in our days became the most significant part of Debussy's genius-- is that his music tickles our subconsciousness in a very different way from what we usually feel when listening to Wagner. 

What about this DVD? In one line, it is ruined by Laurent Pelly's staging but beatified by a superb Natalie Dessay as Mélisande. 

La Sonnambula cancelled after intermission...

A coup de théâtre at Opera Bastille tonight. The infamous intendant of the Paris Opera "forgot" to make sure a cover singer for Amina was ready to replace Natalie Dessay in case she was unable to finish the show. It was relatively easy to predict that possibility as Natalie was already suffering from pharyngitis and was even unsure to sing on the night of the premiere...

And so tonight La Dessay turned completely voiceless during the intermission and --since there was no singer to replace her-- the management had to cancel the rest of the show tonight.
The crowd apparently shocked became also pi**ed when they learned that they wouldn't be even partly refunded...

 A pic from La Sonnambula in Paris

Dessay was to finish this Sonnambula (tonight + two more shows), and then fly to New York where she's supposed to sing Ophélie in Hamlet next month.

We always feel sorry for the singers running in this kind of troubles and wish Natalie a quick recovery. As for Mr.Nicolas Joel, the ONP intendant...

Update 1: Dessay cancels her last two shows in Paris. She will be replaced by Íride Martínez.

Update 2: No refund but for those who had tickets for the night of the truncated Sonnambula, ONP offers 50% discount on the tickets for one of the two concerts scheduled at the Paris Opera this spring. Those who had the most expensive tics will have an extra choice --> 30% off for a seat in the same price-category for either Billy Budd or The Cunning Little Vixen.

Bad Times for the Paris Opera

Now we can assert that --with its new intendant Nicolas Joel-- the Paris Opera (ONP) is hitting one of its history lowest points. The appalling choices he made finally drag this once respectable theater to the bottom of the European Opera standards. Only one year ago it was totally different. It still floats because it's heavily subsidized and it is rich enough to afford to bring the big stars such as Jonas Kaufmann, Natalie Dessay, Anna Netrebko... who come to hide the artistic vacuum - i.e. this theater creates nothing! [in French it's called the cache misère]

A last drop in the cup full of anger was the tonight's premiere of the atrocious production of La Sonnambula. Maybe not because of the production itself, but rather because of the intendant's choice to stage this opera at the Opéra Bastille. With such an idiotic libretto, there is no alchemy that could convert this pile of inane text into anything dramatically acceptable as to be presented on the immense stage of la Bastille. These sugary arias are for the recitals, and this opera is maybe suitable for a smaller (provincial?) theater [if any!]...

Marelli's ideas lasted for one act and then his show went down in flames: it's naive, it's ridiculous, it's appalling...  Even if one adopts the attitude "Come on! It is belcanto. The stage direction doesn't matter there",  this "Titanic" would sink anyway.  Today's rumor was that Natalie Dessay might cancel her prima. After all the drama, she finally decided not to cancel, and now in retrospect I think she should have. Her singing was painful, she was screaming, pushing her voice to the point where you feel uncomfortable and the whole show turned in a big embarrassment. A badly staged crappy opera, with memorably bad singing.

Joel's incapacity to realize that this opera is by no means suitable for Bastille is beyond me. Would it be less awful if it was staged in Garnier? I don't know but in any case, with the current vocal state of la Nata nationale this production would s(t)ink anyway. Only Javier Camarena was relatively OK, but I'm not sure if that's really a compliment - considering the dreadfulness of this show.

Should I remind that the ONP purchased this production too? Yes, from the Royal Opera House where it was premiered EIGHT years ago!!

Yours Truly - angry and sad :(