Yearly opera festival in the small town Orange [Provence - South of France], is the most popular operatic event in France. The festival has a great tradition (it was inaugurated in 1869) and takes place in a magnificent Antique Theater --open air amphitheater-- which can host up to 8,600 people [This is how the theater looks
during an operatic evening.] Every year one opera from
Chorégies d’Orange is live broadcast on the French national television.
Quite honestly, I'm fed up with Tosca because I saw 2 productions in a span of less than 40 days:
first there was that shabby production in Berlin with super-duper-Pieczonka, and then --less than a week ago-- we were overbored by the show
from Munich on Arte.
HOWEVER, I must admit that I'm tempted to see it again next Sunday when it will be live broadcast from Orange. The production was premiered last night and the first reviews are excessively good (
which is not a good sign as far as quality of the staging goes), the cast is terrific
Catherine (the Great) Naglestad,
Roberto Alagna and
Falk Struckmann [plus always reliable
Wojtek Smilek], so... so I guess I'll give it one more shot :)
If you're tempted too, live broadcast on
France2 will start next Sunday, July 18 at 21:30 (Paris time). I am sure you can find a way to see France2 on internet if you don't have it already in your package...
If not, you can follow it on the radio --
here is the link. For more details about the production team
see here.
Below I attached 3 short videos from the last night premiere (2nd and 3rd videos are complete arias
E lucevan le stelle and
Vissi d'arte sung by Mario and Floria respectively.)
Ed1: I'd like to urge you to listen to Catherine the Great Naglestad's perfect singing of Vissi d'arte (last video below). Bless her
Ed2 (after the show): To me this was the best of all three productions of Tosca I could see over the past 40 days or so. The staging was not great but it was very well sung by all the cast members. OK, now I think I've had enough of Tosca ;)
