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Thibault Courtois

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Courtois

Thibault

New York

United States

Chroniqueur depuis le 02 December 2014

Depuis 2008, Thibault Courtois (@thibopera) habite à New York et y relève avec grand bonheur le même défi tous les ans : voir toute la saison du Metropolitan Opera, au moins 26 spectacles, avec patience pour le classicisme dont la maison fait parfois preuve et autant d’ouverture d’esprit possible lorsque le Met s’essaye avec plus ou moins de succès à l’Eurotrash. Cela pour laisser le plus de place possible aux grandes voix qu’on a la chance d’entendre dans ce fabuleux théâtre.

Thibault (@thibopera) has been living in New York since 2008. Every year, he takes on the same challenge with great enthusiasm: seeing the entire season at the Metropolitan Opera, which represents at least 26 performances. He demonstrates great patience for aging productions and tries to stay as open-minded as possible when the Met decides to go Eurotrash. In doing so, he hopes to leave more space for the great voices we are so lucky to hear in this magical opera house.

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Toutes ses chroniques .9

Željko Lučić and Sonya Yoncheva: Otello at the Metropolitan Opera

Thibault Courtois

Opening Night at the Met is like no other night. It is that night when the show is as much on stage as it is in the audience, when the most classical tuxedos leave space to the craziest, fanciest and brightest gowns. Opera aficionados are happy to see each other and are catching up like school kids after a summer vacation while more “notable” New Yorkers slowly and strategically walk the red carpet so it does not look like they are holding up before they get in front of the...


Plácido Domingo in the Met’s Ernani (2015)

Thibault Courtois

Retirement in opera is a delicate thing, especially when it comes to legendary performers like Plácido Domingo. While I understand it is common in sport stadiums to see drunk frustrated fans screaming “TIME TO RETIRE” as an aging player is walking off the field, I had yet to see something comparable in an opera house. That was before last week. New York Times’ critic Anthony Tommasini’s review of this year’s Ernani at the Met in which he called for...


Manon at the Metropolitan Opera, New York

Thibault Courtois

The Met has gathered a lot of French talent around this short run of Massenet’s Manon: the bass-baritone Nicolas Testé as Count des Grieux, the tenor Christophe Mortagne as Guillot, Emmanuel Villaume in the pit, all of them in a production by Laurent Pelly. Vittorio Grigolo and Diana Damrau star as Des Grieux and Manon. Mr. Grigolo is now at home at the Metropolitan Opera where he gave a recital and sang in three different productions in the last year. Grigolo’s...


Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, New York

Thibault Courtois

“Roberto Alagna and Jonas Kaufmann take turns playing Carmen’s desperate lover, Don José” may be a quote from the online brochure of the Opera House you started in one of your opera fanatic dreams. In real life, it is a quote from the Metropolitan Opera’s website. Jonas Kaufmann will be singing for the last two shows of the run early March while Roberto Alagna has covered the whole month of February. Any good vocal coach will tell you that French is the...


Juan Diego Flórez and Joyce DiDonato in the Met’s La Donna del...

Thibault Courtois

Strangely, it is the first run ever of La Donna del Lago at the Met, almost two hundred years after it received its premiere. One could argue that this operais rarely put on stage notably because it is an opera for very rare singers with natural Rossini voices able to reach every corner of a 3800 seats concert hall. However, the piece has been capitalizing some interest for the past five years thanks to two superstars who added some of the most difficult arias of this opera to their...


Don Giovanni – Metropolitan Opera

Thibault Courtois

            It is always a bit sad when the curtain goes up in front of an half empty opera house. There is of course the awfully cold February New York weather, no to mention the particularly unpopular Michael Grandage’s production – a large number of critics have described it as not daring enough and boring – that premiered here at the Met in 2011. One could think the cast should be helping: Petter Mattei as Don...