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

Ariadne auf Naxos in Paris

Ariadne auf Naxos, Opéra National de Paris (Bastille), December 22 2010

Philippe Jordan ..... Conductor

Laurent Pelly ..... Staging and costumes

Franz Mazura ..... Der Haushofmeister

Martin Gantner ..... Ein Musiklehrer

Sophie Koch ..... Der Komponist

Stefan Vinke ..... Der Tenor (Bacchus)

Xavier Mas ..... Ein Tanzmeister

Vladimir Kapshuk ..... Ein Perückenmacher

Jane Archibald ..... Zerbinetta

Ricarda Merbeth ..... Primadonna (Ariadne)

Elena Tsallagova ..... Najade

Diana Axentii ..... Dryade

Yun Jung Choi ..... Echo

Edwin Crossley-Mercer ..... Harlekin

François Piolino ..... Scaramuccio

François Lis ..... Truffaldino

Michael Laurenz ..... Müller Brighella

Paris Opera Orchestra

To lose in Mahagonny or Mahagonny in Toulouse: Good show!

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny [Grandeur et décadence de la ville de Mahagonny], Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, November 21 2010

Laurent Pelly ..... director
Ilan Volkov ..... conductor

Marjana Lipovsek ..... Leokadja Begbick
Chris Merritt ..... Fatty, der "Prokurist"
Gregg Baker ..... Dreieinigkeitsmoses
Valentina Farcas ..... Jenny Hill
Nikolai Schukoff ..... Jim Mahoney
Roger Padullés ..... Jack O’Brien
Harry Peeters ..... Joe, genannt Alaskawolfjoe
Tommi Hakala ..... Bill, genannt Sparbüchsenbill

Orchestre national du Capitole

GRATIS: Watch the new production of Don Quichotte from La Monnaie/De Munt

Last  Saturday, May 8, at 20:30 (cet), there was a live broadcast from Brussels of the new Laurent Pelly's production of Don Quichotte, on Arte-Live Web. For the next 60 days when you find some time you can watch it for free:

Marc Minkowski conducted the show which is most probably the last time we could see José van Dam singing in an opera. 

A good note about this opera can be found  on Wiki.

European Opera Days on Arte: Don Quichotte from la Monnaie

Arte  will broadcast the new production of Don Quichotte --an opera by Jules Massenet and directed by Laurent Pelly-- live from La Monnaie/De Munt, one of the best opera houses in Europe [and very dear to my heart], on Saturday, May 8, at 20:30 (cet)
Maestro Marc Minkowski will be conducting the house's orchestra and the singers including José van Dam <--- his last role in Belgium before retirement.

Notice in particular that the weekend of May 8-9 will be celebrated all over Europe as European Opera days. Check out this map to get more details about the free events/visits... near you.

Platée arrive chez vous (1)

Platée is an opera written by a French baroque composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau, who is unfortunately not as famous worldwide as he should be: we're talking about a pure genius.
Most of his operas are  recorded, each involving the prestigious conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner, William Christie, Marc Minkowski...  Over the past 10 years or so his work is attracting more and more interest and many opera houses in Europe start including in one of his operas in the programs.

The trouble in producing his operas is that they regularly contain a couple of "ballet" numbers --->  need more rehearsal time --> productions are more costly.

Back to Platée... It is an opera bouffe, with a far-fetched plot, like in most[all?] baroque operas, which --when properly staged-- can become wickedly funny. This was the case with a recent revival of the Laurent Pelly's production of Platée at the Paris Opera. That's a kind of productions Laurent Pelly knows how to do well. I saw it last December and I liked it a lot: it was funny [full of froggy/self-deprecating humor], fast paced, well constructed, very well performed by Les musiciens du Louvre  & Marc Minkowski, and brilliantly sung too (see here for details). 

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.