Opéra Bastille

Siegfried

Jun 23

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...

Die Walküre

Jun 19

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...

Das Rheingold

Jun 18

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...

Giulio Cesare

May 23 – Jun 18, 2013

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...

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

May 21 – Jun 16, 2013

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...

Giuseppe Verdi

Jun 10

Béjart/Nijinski/Robbins/ Cherkaoui, Jalet

May 2 – Jun 3, 2013

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...

La Gioconda

May 2 – May 31, 2013

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...

Dimitri Chostakovitch / Gustav Mahler

May 28

Gustav Mahler Symphony n° 10 (Adagio) Dimitri Shostakovitch Symphony n° 13 in B flat minor Babi Yar, op. 113

Gustav Mahler's third symphony

Apr 9 – May 12, 2013

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...