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La Damnation de Faust: A Romantic Legend

  Originally subtitled “concert opera” and later “legend-opera”.La Damnation de Faust was subsequently dubbed by Berlioz a “dramatic legend in four parts”.This indecision reflects the unclassifiable and protean nature of a work that is a succession of independent tableaus each belonging to a different genre.Fascinated by Goethe’s Faust, which he discovered in the translation by Gérard de Nerval, Hector Berlioz...

Published onthe 28 of November
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Moses and Aaron: an unfinished opera

Next saturday, Moses and Aaron is played at the Opéra de Paris, in a new production signed by Romeo Castellucci (which will be broadcasted online next week). A choice taken by Stéphane Lissner for his first season at the very head of the parisian house, who wants to « interrogate about the greater questions on the world we are living in ». We take this occasion to analyse the issues (mostly lyrical) of this rare opera, sometimes diffcult to...

Published onthe 14 of October
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Peter Gelb: Bringing high art to a wider public

Leader's vision - Peter Gelb Bringing high art to a wider public Although his 10th season as general manager of the Metropolitan Opera is under way, Peter Gelb doesn’t seem to be thinking much about milestones. Even an institution the size and stature of the Met faces keen challenges in today’s cultural marketplace, as he notes: ‘‘Opera at this level is an extraordinarily expensive undertaking — it’s not designed for 21st-century pocketbooks....

Published onthe 01 of October
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Otello, or Shakespeare Sublimated

Composed after 15 years of silence, Otello is the result of an unlikely collaboration between renowned composer Verdi when he was 75 years old, and the young librettist Arrigo Boito when he adapted Shakespeare’s famous Othello – in a libretto focusing on Iago’s machinations as he tries to trap Otello and Desdemona. We take a look at the “powerfully tragic work, of searing intensity”. *** Despite its immense fame, Otello has never been a popular opera,...

Published onthe 22 of September
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Orphée et Eurydice: the advent of a new sensibility

Created during the Age of Enlightenment, first in Vienna and later in Paris in a modified version in 1774, Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice marks the renewal of opera, leaving behind the codes of opera seria in favour of a more streamlined lyric format, with more room for emotion and the expression of a new sensibility. And Orphée et Eurydice is the work chosen by London’s Royal Opera House to open its 2015-2016 season, with a new production...

Published onthe 13 of September