Some festivals go out with a whimper. Once the excitement of the opening production in the Cour d'Honneur has passed, the remaining artists often present more modest, less foregrounded projects. There are concerts, readings, and other events, and it remains a vibrant hub of activity, but it is never…
Boris Charmatz dances with discomfort. His work Muette, now in performance at the Festival d'Avignon's La Chartreuse, offers no easy viewing. Earthy movement, prolonged silence, and nudity combine in an unsettling yet riveting exploration of the body. Charmatz seeks to dance the interior self, a sel…
What better way to close out the Festival d'Avignon than with a love letter to the theatre? At the conclusion of Casting Lear, now performing at the Opéra Grand Avignon as part of the Festival, creator and performer André Jiménez makes an impassioned case for the art form. …
In Christiane Jatahy and Wagner Moura's Un Procès Après l'Ennemi du Peuple, now performing at the Festival d'Avignon's Gymnase du Lycée Aubanel, Thomas Stockmann finally gets his day in court. Reimagining the events of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People in contemporary Brazil, the production transfor…
With its generous public funding for culture, France's Festival d'Avignon can produce theatrical spectacles on an extraordinary scale. Its directors regularly push the formal limits of the art form with enormous casts, technological innovation, and elaborate stagecraft. …
In his podcast, political commentator Ezra Klein has examined a curious conundrum within the modern elite: the pursuit of extraordinary qualities divorced from their original purpose. Looksmaxers have become sterile in their pursuit of superhuman beauty. …
In a BBC interview, famed director Katie Mitchell calls for fewer productions of Hamlet. She is tired of attending plays about “misogynistic, angry, depressed men.” I respect any artist defining the boundaries of what interests them. …
Across the Rhône from Avignon, in the picturesque town of Villeneuve, sits Villeneuve en Scène. The site, usually associated with the Festival “Off,” contains food trucks, a bar, picnic areas, and small courts where locals play rounds of boules. Toward the back of the festival grounds stands a…
Some performances in Avignon require me to put on my Euro-goggles. Sometimes the adjustment is one of taste: comedy, for instance, varies dramatically between American and continental European sensibilities. Other times, it is a matter of social vocabulary. Race functions very differently in America…
Molière is a surprising figure to hold such a central position in French culture. The image of France as sophisticated, understated, and elite extends only partially to his oeuvre. In practice, Molière’s theatre appropriated and elevated the popular Italian tradition of commedia dell’arte.…
Created in 1965, Roland Petit's first production for the Opera Ballet, Notre Dame de Paris,is an intense work. With his highly developed sense of theatricality and his taste for dramatic stories, Roland Petit took up Victor Hugo's classic masterpiece: around the four principal...
There is perhaps nothing more straightforward than La Bohème: a young man and a young woman meet, fall in love, are separated by life and then reunited again before the ultimate separation. It happens in Paris, an eternally Bohemian Paris, as legendary as it is real. Out of this...
The Paris Opera celebrates Nicolas Le Riche and honours his departure. After more than thirty years at the Opera, Nicolas Le Riche shares memories of ballets, moments of complicity and encounters that have left their mark on him. A choreographed farewell to celebrate a new life.
Neither Fortune nor Virtue can vie with Love who, with a mere wave of the hand, can transform the world: such is the message conveyed by L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Monteverdi’s last masterpiece. Thirty five years had passed since his Orfeo, which had opened the era of the favola...
“Poor Mariette Duplessis is dead... the first woman I ever loved, and now she's in goodness knows which cemetery, abandoned to the maggots of the sepulchre! It's as she said to me fifteen months ago: “I won’t live: I’m a strange girl and I won’t be able to keep living a life I...
Richard Wagner Tannha?user (overture) Richard Strauss Lieder Hector Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, op. 14
When he adapted Romeo and Juliette, the librettist Felice Romani chose to go back in time past Shakespeare, to the Italian origins of the legend. He tightened the storyline, editing out Mercutio, the nurse, the moonlight and the nightingale... The drama becomes more sombre: the...
Orphée et Eurydice is one of Pina Bausch’s major works. The choreographer brings flesh and blood to Gluck’s score –here conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock—while opting to distance herself from the work’s happy ending. Having descended into the Underworld to look for his loved-one...
Arnold Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht, for strings Franz Schubert Symphony N° 8 in C major (The Great), D 944
In 1857 Wagner took a pause from composing the Ring, abandoning Siegfried in the depths of the forest to embark upon another quest. The composer had read Schopenhauer and the Bhagavad-G?ta – perceiving in renunciation the ultimate means of breaking free from the limits of...
Ludwig Thuille Sextet for piano and wind quintet, op. 6 Ludwig Van Beethoven Quintet for piano and winds, op. 16
One of Rossini’s most exquisite successes, from a composer who was just 21 at the time: an opera buffa which has retained all its charm and humour, to as score as fresh today as it was then and characters who seem to have been born yesterday. The beautiful Isabella sails off to...
The Young Dancers performances allow the upcoming generation to shine on stage in extracts from both classical works and today's repertoire. An opportunity for the future hopes of the Paris Opera Ballet, more often hard at work in the Corps de Ballet, to perform the showpiece...
We will never know how death revealed itself to Mozart and when and in what form it dispatched its messengers to him. Nevertheless, all the music composed in 1791, his last year, reveals to us that Mozart had heard and accepted their message without fear. Mozart loved...
Jean Cras Quintet with harp Jean Françaix String trio André Jolivet Chant de Linos Claude Debussy Sonata for flute, viola and harp Albert Roussel Sérénade
Echoing the Tricentennial celebrated in 2013, the school of dance continues its journey through the history of the choreographic style of the French school of dance. Concerto in d, created by Claude Bessy in 1977 for the first show of the school of dance, she led from 1973 to...
John Cage Third construction Maurice Ohana Étude d’interprétation n° 11 « Sons confondus » ; Étude d’interprétation n° 12 « Imitations-Dialogues » George Crumb Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)
Widely regarded as the greatest opera ever composed, Don Giovanni tells of the devious schemes and hijinks of history’s most beguiling scoundrel, Don Juan. Mozart’s anti-hero has a personality so engaging that audiences root for him, even as his dark side emerges. Don Giovanni...
Modeste Moussorgski Night on the Bare Mountain Serguei Rachmaninov Piano concerto N° 3 Dimitri Chostakovitch Symphony N° 6 in B minor, op. 54
Pioneers of 20th century dance, Agnes de Mille and Birgit Cullberg both ventured along new pathways in order to translate the passions and inner conflicts of their characters into movement and bodily expression. In 1945, the American choreographer, Agnes de Mille exploited a...
Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and most comprehensive portraits of a woman in the history of opera—but also one of the most terrible, since it is a tale of humiliation and deceit which ultimately leads to death. From its advent in the 1890s, “verismo” had relied on...
With Onéguine, John Cranko has conceived one of the key ballets of the repertoire. Inspired by Alexander Pushkin's verse-novel, he has streamlined the story and focused the intrigue on the feelings and relationships of the four principal characters. Unfinished loves, duels and...
Hugo Wolf Italian Serenade Ottorino Respighi String quartet in D major Giacomo Puccini Crisantemi Ottorino Respighi Il Tramonto
"In those strange days, people coming from God knows where, joined forces in that far Western land, and, according to the rude custom of the camp, their very names were soon lost and unrecorded, and here they struggled, laughed, gambled, cursed, killed, loved and worked out...
"From Alcina you will receive the sceptre and the power and you will be the happiest of mortals. But you will soon become no more than beast, tree or rock." These words are taken from Handel's third opera, inspired by the poem Orlando Furioso and first performed in London in...
In Massenet's masterpiece, from the moment the moonlight idyll is revealed and then shattered, the tears never cease to flow. "My entire being weeps", says Werther. This is a far cry from the furtive tears or the violent sobbing usually associated with opera. These tears fall...
Benjamin Britten Sinfonia da Requiem Frederick Delius Violin concerto Johannes Brahms Symphony n° 3
Following their last tour in 2011, the prestigious Bolshoi Theatre Ballet has again been invited to perform at the Palais Garnier. They return this season with a creation by Alexei Ratmansky: Lost Illusions, based on the novel by Balzac. First performed in Moscow in 2011 to a...
The “Ballet of ballets” as Rudolf Nureyev described it, Sleeping Beauty remains one of the jewels in the heritage of dance. First performed in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, the work combined the talents of choreographer Marius Petipa and composer...
The “Ballet of ballets” as Rudolf Nureyev described it, Sleeping Beauty remains one of the jewels in the heritage of dance. First performed in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, the work combined the talents of choreographer Marius Petipa and composer...
Like a stroll through the labyrinths of love, Le Parc follows its course through the codes of seduction, from initial encounters to physical love and on to total self-surrender. Four gardeners with black glasses—modern-day cupids—control the game in an imaginary garden. Beyond...
GUSTAV MAHLER Symphony N° 2 in C minor "Resurrection"
Like a stroll through the labyrinths of love, Le Parc follows its course through the codes of seduction, from initial encounters to physical love and on to total self-surrender. Four gardeners with black glasses—modern-day cupids—control the game in an imaginary garden. Beyond...
Présentation Mozart's last opera, along with Die Zauberflöteand the Requiem, is his testament, the testament of an aesthete but also that of a humanist. From his childhood, Mozart had passionately loved and brilliantly exploited the genre of opera seria in works such as Lucio...
Leonard Bernstein West Side Story George Gershwin Porgy and Bess Suite Daniel Schnyder Brass Quintet Paquito d’Rivera Four Songs for Brass Quintet
As an echo to the Tricentenary celebrations of 2013, the Paris Opera Ballet School pursues its journey through the stylistic history of the French School. The evening begins with Concerto en Ré, created by Claude Bessy in 1977 for the first performance by the school she directed...
At a time when the whole of Europe was obsessed by Romanticism, what nation did not dream of Italy? Goethe's Mignon sings of the Sicilian countryside where an orange tree in full bloom can be seen silhouetted against the sky; Stendhal and Heine led their readers down Florentine...
Edgar Varese Intégrales Serguei Prokofiev Romeo and Juliette, Suites N° 1 and N° 2 (excerpts) Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovski Symphony N° 4 in F minor, op. 36
The time taken by a slow sunset. This is Hofmannsthal's stage direction for the performance of Elektra, a one-act tragedy of unimaginable darkness and violence. The same term is often applied to the dying flames of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and indeed all cosmopolitan Europe...
Eight Pieces for Four Timpani (Improvisation- Adagio-Canaries) Steep Steps Due Duetti Two Fragments Quintet for clarinet and string quartet Con leggerezza pensosa A Six Letter Letter Tempo e tempi
With its fascination for Egypt, 19th century Europe seems to have embarked on an intoxicating voyage down the Nile, marvelling at the colours of that great river and of the Egyptian sky, rediscovering monuments that are not so much palaces and towns but enigmatic sanctuaries of...
United in their quest for beauty, three contemporary choreographers each bring the stage alive according to their own sensibility to enhance the aesthetics of their dance. Ten years after his first creation for the Paris Opera Ballet, the Japanese dancer and choreographer Saburo...
Thus do they all or The School for Lovers. When Lorenzo da Ponte is the teacher, the lesson is harsh and cruel, even if Mozart cannot resist tempering the implacable demonstration with musical grace. Before the cynical gaze of a pair of meddling manipulators, two brothers and...
Franz Schreker Der Wind Erwin Schulhoff Concertino Richard Strauss Till Eulenspiegel, op. 28 Hanns Eisler 14 ways to describe rain, op. 70 Leoš Janácek Concertino
Franz Liszt confessed that he was unable to think of Marie Duplessis, the muse of Alexandre Dumas who inspired his Dame aux camélias, without shedding a tear. Giuseppe Verdi gave her the name of Violetta Valéry and made the Traviata—or fallen woman—one of the most touching and...
In Paris in 1835, Donizetti could not hope to compete against the wave of enthusiasm for I Puritani by his rival Bellini. His Marino Faliero, inspired by Byron's drama of the same name, and with the same singers as I Puritani, namely Giovanni Battista Rubini and Giula Grisi...
Simplicity, truth and naturalness: these, according to Gluck, are the eternal attributes of beauty and the ultimate goal to which he aspired. "Alceste must not merely please us now while she is still a novelty. She must be timeless. I maintain that it will still delight in two...
"Who would want to live for eternity?" asks Emilia Marty as she is about to die, brandishing the formula for the elixir that has allowed her to live for 337 years ... For his penultimate opera, Janá?ek drew upon the literary works of Karel ?apek, a pioneer of science fiction...
Presented by Monica Loughman Ballet with principle dancers of the Mariinksky Theatre and San Jose Ballet. Artistic Director Monica Loughman is bringing two of the biggest names in ballet today, Anton Korsakov and Evgenia Obrastzova, for the roles of James and Sylph. With...
The origins of this work lie in artist Olivier Debré’s desire to translate into a series of paintings the feeling elicited in him by a smile, the first of the ‘signs’. Inspired by these flamboyant landscape paintings depicting various parts of the world in terms of sensibilities...
Olivier Messiaen Un sourire Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Concerto n° 20 in D minor, K. 466 Carl Nielsen Symphony n° 4 The Inextinguishable, op. 29
It is Brünnhilde herself who, at the end of The Valkyrie, names the son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, the long-awaited hero Siegfried. The second day of the Ring cycle shows him in his turbulent early years, a headstrong youngster, tamer of bears and slayer of dragons. At the heart...
Nothing, in the bitingly cruel prelude that is The Rhinegold, could foreshadow the blazing miracle of The Walkyrie whose role within the Ring cycle is clearly to portray the threatened splendour of the gods and to pave the way for the coming of the new, free man, Siegfried...
A simple E flat major chord, austere and unchanging, inaudible up until now but no doubt present since all eternity. Scarcely perceptible at first, the sound unfurls, twisting over and under waves and currents; the breakers, “rolling the reflected heavens, blended in a solemn...
William Shakespeare, in the early years of the 17th century, had been unable to resist bringing to the stage the character of Cleopatra, the bewitching and impetuous queen of Egypt, mistress of Caesar and Mark Anthony. A century later Handel also succumbed to her charms...
At last the dusk approaches: it has been heralded, promised almost, since The Rhine Gold, and we have been awaiting it with impatience. The whole universe of the Ring, solidly constructed during the earlier days, the gleaming fortress, the resplendent god avid for annihilation...
For choreographers, ballet music has never ceased to be a source of inexhaustible inspiration offering a plethora of new readings and personal interpretations. If The Firebird, adapted from a traditional Russian tale, was initially written by Stravinsky for Diaghilev’s Ballets...
In his preface to Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, one of his rare prose plays, Victor Hugo says that drama has to be both noble and real. In transposing the play to operatic form, Amilcare Ponchielli and Arrigo Boito remained faithful to Hugo. Their Gioconda, first performed at La...
Gustav Mahler Symphony n° 10 (Adagio) Dimitri Shostakovitch Symphony n° 13 in B flat minor Babi Yar, op. 113
The entire edifice of John Neumeier’s work is built around a profound musical sensibility. However, the choreographer, in his constant questioning of the human condition, probably finds the closest reflection of his own humanist concerns in the works of Gustav Mahler, several of...
Hansel and Gretel are the children of a poor broomstick maker and his wife. One day they are playing so boisterously that they neglect their chores, so their mother sends them into the woods to gather berries as a punishment. A little while later their father returns, happy...
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MODE D''EMPLOI POUR METTEUR EN SCENE ... TH DU ROND POINT - SALLE ROLAND TOPOR (11/21-11/27) |
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LA TRESSE THEATRE DE LA RENAISSANCE (9/25-1/10) |
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PARIS IS MAGIQUE GAITE RIVE GAUCHE (6/24-8/29) |
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VELVET TH DU ROND POINT-SALLE RENAUD BARRAULT (1/07-1/10) |
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UBU ROI THEATRE DE PARIS (9/16-10/25) |
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DRAG RACE FRANCE LIVE SAISON 4 - DRAG RACE FRANCE LIVE CASINO DE PARIS (9/24-10/02) |
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LE BAR DES LÉGENDES MELO D'AMELIE (9/15-12/30) |
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ROMEO & JULIETTE LDLC ARENA (3/24-3/26) |
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CLEMENT VIKTOROVITCH ZENITH DE LILLE (2/06-2/06) |
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GUY DE MAUPASSANT - LE HORLA COMEDIE OBERKAMPF (9/20-9/27) |
