Faust – Opéra de Lille

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry’s death, the Opéra Royal de Wallonie brought the composer’s Guillaume Tell back to life in the city of his birth. With a mostly Belgian cast, they offer a brilliant revival of a monument of Walloon music history. Stefano Mazzonis Di Pralafera decided to exaggerate the comic bent of the original libretto by framing the production with exuberantly zany stage sets inspired by circus theater. Marc Laho incarnates the perfect hero (Guillaume Tell) and the sublime Anne-Catherine Gillet his wife (Madame Tell). The opera is set in 13th century Switzerland, and stages patriotic Swiss people’s heroic fight for liberty—with Tell as their chief—against the evil and oppression of the Austrians led by Guesler, the local governor. A superb production of a raucously entertaining opera!

In this new "Marriage of Figaro", Jérémie Rhorer revisits this composer and US film director James Gray makes his first foray into opera. This opera is recorded for broadcast by Louise Narboni.

The first words uttered by Carmen mark one of the greatest entrances in the history of opera and express all that need be said: “Love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame…” With a devilish sway of the hips and a hint of Andalusian flair, the beautiful cigar-maker sets her sights on a soldier: Don José. Fate will do the rest.

"The White Horse Inn" is the last Berlin operetta of the interwar period. It is a hybrd work that mixes Tyrolean folklore, Viennese operetta, Berlin cabaret tunes and dance hall numbers. The arrival of eccentric clients from the south of France breaks the serenity of a charming establishment in the Austrian Alps, and the once civilised party becomes a free-for-all.

Six marriages, two annulments, two beheadings and the founding of his own Church, against the authority of Rome... in his search for a suitable spouse, the notorious Tudor King of England Henry VIII shrank from nothing. Here we focus on the amorous and political intrigues surrounding the annulment of Henry's first marriage to Catherine of Aragon in favour of his new passion for Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII, a grand historical opera by Camille Saint-Saëns, is characterised by stark contrasts: ardour and modesty, jealousy and renunciation, intimacy and solemnity. La Monnaie in Brussels have entrusted their new production to director Olivier Py and conductor Alain Altinoglu, two fervent champions of the French repertoire. With magnificent sets, high drama and compelling music, this production offers a musical journey which starts in sixteenth century England but still resonates today through a timeless question: How far can a man of power go with his conquests?

La belle Hélène is the work that confirmed Offenbach's international reputation. The libretto caricatures the conventions of Greek mythology to poke fun at contemporary society, and the melodies, once heard, never leave you. The erotic and political scandal surrounding the creation of this work ensured its immediate and enduring success. We are carried away by music that is always new and inventive, sprinkled with nods to other works: the dream duet between Helen and Paris, the patriotic trio mimicking Rossini's William Tell, the ensemble of "the man with the apple" and the waltz of the "vile seducer"... Not to mention the exquisite humor of the language, whose inventions, such as "plis de vaillance" (folds of valor) and "poux de la reine" (queen's lice), have entered the lexical fund. In this celebration of Offenbach, we constantly swing between laughter and beauty, indulging in the pleasure of all the senses...

Berlioz’s whimsical and nostalgic take on Shakespeare’s great comedy Much Ado About Nothing graces the stage of Glyndebourne in Laurent Pelly’s astute 2016 production. Italian maestro Antonello Manacorda leads the London Philharmonic in Berlioz’s brilliant score.

The most brilliant of Austrian operettas takes us to the outskirts of romantic Old Vienna. It’s New Year Eve and we are in the company of Caroline, who is determined to teach her philandering husband Gaillardin a lesson, even while she is being pursued by her former beau, the operatic tenor Alfred. At the centre of the action is the extremely wealthy, eternally bored Prince Orlofsky, whose lavish masked ball brings everything to a most delicious boil. But what if the whole plot has been a cunning plan masterminded by someone just to get back at Eisenstein?

For his opera Garnier stage-directing debut, Simon Stone creates a sensational La Traviata, 2.0! Pretty Yende and Benjamin Bernheim triumph as Violetta and Alfredo in a production that remixes the beloved operatic masterpiece’s familiar love story for the digital age, adding social media notifications, all-nighters, texts, and parties to produce an interpretation starkly appropriate for our modern era. At the podium, Michele Mariotti conducts the Paris National Opera Orchestra.

This Blu-ray is a splendid record of a creative production with terrific voices and direction, as good as the Met's videos any day. It also tends to be creepy and atmospheric, with music as good as anything Gounod wrote for his FAUST. Recommended to lovers of horror and opera!

Opera in four acts Libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and Hippolyte-Louis-Florent Bis

After Tosca (2019), which marked Puccini’s entry into its repertoire, the Festival celebrates the centenary of the composer’s death this year by putting on his ‘Japanese tragedy’ Madame Butterfly: the cruel story of a vulnerable but strong and wilful heroine, driven by her blind perseverance to ritual suicide. By enveloping her with a bright lyricism and a supremely refined orchestration, Puccini reaches the heart of his artistic identity – reminding us of the real pleasure of tears. Conducting the orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon, Daniele Rustioni offers the finest of backdrops to Ermonela Jaho, whose rare combination of force and delicacy has made her a go-to choice in this wonderful yet harrowing role, in which she is making her prized debut in Aix.

Charlotte only married Albert out of duty but continues to love Werther without admitting it to herself and even less to him. The young man despairs at seeing his advances rejected and will not taste the love that the young woman comes to confess too late. Adapted from Goethe's novel, Jules Massenet's opera Werther is a jewel of French lyric repertoire. Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier Occitanie shares the sober and elegant staging by Bruno Ravella – his Rosenkavalier was recently enjoyed on OperaVision – and invites the famous Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux to sing Charlotte for the first time, alongside a young and almost exclusively French-speaking cast conducted by Jean-Marie Zietouni.

Mozart under the stars and on the big screen. This is the principle of the operation proposed on 16 July 2011 by the Opéra de Lyon. The representation that was played on his stage was broadcast simultaneously and outdoors in thirteen Rhône-Alpes cities including Ambérieu-en-Bugey, Valence and Grenoble. Thousands of spectators were able to attend a free version of the opera "Cosi fan tutte". It is Adrian Noble who signs the mise-en-scene of this umpteenth production of the famous masterpiece, a joke on the banter that will turn to drama. The American made a bold choice by transposing the plot to a beach in California . The idea came to him during a stay in Santa Monica: the skaters on the sidewalk made him think of the characters Ferrando and Guglielmo who play with their lovers.

In a kingdom where day is night and noon chills the blood, a prince suspects his mysterious wife to be in love with his half-brother. But where does Mélisande come from? And what do we really know about the two heroes' silent love? A single opera was all it took for Debussy to transform the history of music forever. Opéra de Lille presents us with a Mélisande full of vitality and determination, far from the familiar ethereal figure. In the pit, François-Xavier Roth and his internationally renowned ensemble Les Siècles, playing on period instruments, lend new colours to a score which we thought we knew.

With a devilish sway of the hips and a hint of Andalusian flair, Carmen, the beautiful cigar-maker sets her sights on a soldier: Don José. Fate will do the rest. Composed to a libretto by Meilhac and Halévy based on Prosper Mérimée’s novella, the opera exploded the boundaries between tragedy and comedy with a modernity that caused a scandal at the time. Can we kill the one we love with love? The fiery beauty of Bizet’s music, where one unforgettable aria follows another, has worked year in, year out to make it the world’s most performed opera.

Gregor is an idealist who wants to develop the uses of electricity in a revolutionary way. While he himself is not interested in profit, he is surrounded by shameless industrialists who steal and exploit his inventions. Adored and ultimately mistreated by his fellow man, the philanthropic genius will only find solace in the company of birds. Inspired by the life story of engineer Nikola Tesla as fictionalised by novelist Jean Echenoz, the third opera by composer Philippe Hersant lights up Opéra Comique. Conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Chœur Aedès, Ariane Matiakh draws out the poetry from this scientific adventure alongside director Clément Hervieu-Léger.

With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales a Cinderella that looks back to Charles Perraults original story in all its richness and ambiguity. Massenets sensuous Belle Epoque fairy tale is gilded with lavish orchestral textures and glittering vocal writing, drawing on everything from baroque dances to Wagner-inspired chromaticism to bring its story to colourful life, conjuring a world of infinite musical and emotional variety.