Il Trovatore premiered in Brussels: Tcherniakov hits a big show again, Scott Hendricks too

Il Trovatore, La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels, June 10 2012

Director ..... Dmitri Tcherniakov

Music direction ..... Marc Minkowski

Il Conte di Luna ..... Scott Hendricks

Manrico ..... Misha Didyk

Azucena ..... Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo

Leonora ..... Marina Poplavskaya

Ferrando ..... Giovanni Furlanetto

La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra & Chorus

Cinderella for Adults

Cendrillon, Opéra Comique in Paris, March 11 2011

Director ..... Benjamin Lazar

Conductor ..... Marc Minkowski

Cendrillon ..... Blandine Staskiewicz 

Le Prince charmant ..... Michèle Losier
La Fée ..... Église Gutiérrez
Mme de La Haltière ..... Ewa Podleś
Pandolfe ..... Laurent Alvaro
Noémie ..... Aurélia Legay
Dorothée ..... Salomé Haller
Le Roi ..... Laurent Herbaut
Le Doyen de la Faculté ..... Vincent de Rooster
Le Surintendant des plaisirs ..... Julien Neyer


Orchestra and chorus of Musiciens du Louvre - Grenoble

We will barock you (5): Alcina at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

Alcina (in concert),  TCE Paris, November 29 2010

Anja Karteros (Alcina) and Vesselina Kasarova (Ruggero) - photo Herwig Prammer

Marc Minkowski ..... conductor 

Anja Harteros ..... Alcina
Vesselina Kasarova ..... Ruggiero
Verónica Cangemi ..... Morgana
Kristina Hammarström ..... Bradamante
Luca Tittoto ..... Melisso
Benjamin Bruns ..... Oronte
Shintaro Nakajima Oberto .... a young boy

Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble 

Nearly perfect production of Roméo et Juliette in Amsterdam

Roméo et Juliette, De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam, October 10 2010

Conductor ..... Marc Minkowski

Director ..... Olivier Py

Juliette ..... Lyubov Petrova

Roméo ..... Ismael Jordi

Frère Laurent ..... Nicolas Testé

Stéphano ..... Cora Burggraaf

Mercutio ..... Henk Neven

Tybalt ..... Sébastien Droy

Gertrude ..... Doris Lamprecht

Benvolio ..... Jean-Léon Klostermann

Paris ..... Maarten Koningsberger

Grégorio ..... Mattijs van de Woerd

Capulet ..... Philippe Rouillon

Le Duc/Frère Jean ..... Christophe Fel

Manuela ..... Oleksandra Lenyshyn

Pepita ..... Maartje de Lint

Angelo ..... John van Halteren

Residentie Orkest & Koor van De Nederlandse Opera

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).