La dernière nuit de Jeanne dArc (French Edition)

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Down this week. She was previously married to Guillaume Laurant. May 31 , in Gannat, Allier, France. View agent, publicist, legal on IMDbPro. Filmography by Job Trailers and Videos. IMDb's Guide to Streaming. My forty favourite French actresses. Actresses born before Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage.

How Much Have You Seen? The oldest part of the castle is a large, square-shaped, Romanesque keep with vertical sides and few openings, held together with attached watch towers and equipped with a narrow spiral staircase terminating on a crenellated terrace. The castle was bought in by Lucien Grosso who has restored it. More about this image on the MacLean Photographic blog macleancomms. It is the capital of the Loiret department and of the Centre region. All photos are available on www.

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Les Nuits de France Culture

Jeanne d'Arc by Jeff Carter. Ballon d'Alsace Jeanne d'Arc by Outlandos [ym]. Sainte Jeanne d'Arc by victor mendivil. Sainte Jeanne d'Arc en la catedral de Notre Damme. It was staged as theater in the round, several hundred people sitting below the empty galleries behind the platform. The stage resources equalled the pit resources in this production of massive size and daunting complexity. The Salzburg Festival was obviously committed to making this an important theatrical and musical event. The assembled cast achieved this goal dramatically and vocally, and the production team arrived at its theatrical brilliance with amazing technical finesse.

Graf von Gloster; Kai Wessel: Graf von Kent; Derek Welton: Herzog von Albany; Michael Colvin: South African actor, artist, multimedia artist, film and theater, now opera director William Kentridge has taken the world by storm over the past few years. And now Wozzeck at the Salzburg Festival. It is one dimensional. We had little time to tire of them, and given the subject matter they were not trite. It was an artistic success of image to music. Goerne in fact was the surrogate William Kentridge in this production — Mr Kentridge himself is always a central feature in his stagings.

A super, the puppeteer and puppet of the child in gas mask Of very great effect was the Child represented by a puppet, an image laden with metaphoric, if hackneyed possibilities.

No one did, they were played by mallets in the orchestra, the words projected on the supertitle screen. But the vaunted orchestral signposts were obliterated by the incessant flow of images. Was this the intention of conductor Vladimir Jurowski, or was he a victim of the production? Drum Major; Mauro Peter: First Apprentice; Huw Montague Rendall: Director; Luc De Wit: Handel opera productions are famously fraught with troubling decisions — which voices to use, which gender to use for which voices, which dances to use from which opera.

Sometimes decisions are made for you. The abstract story telling of the Handel operas indeed offer stage directors rich possibility for imagining context. But in Salzburg German stage director, Christof Loy, took everything at absolute face value -- it was Handel's opera as it was, through post-modern lens. It had multiple scene changes. A basic neoclassical room opened up from time to time to reveal elaborately painted Rococo scenes, and once it opened to reveal a shockingly huge room it was elaborately forced-perspective architecture. As well there was an elaborately blank wall that descended mid-stage from time to time to obliterate all sense of physical location.

It was a confusion easily solved by Christof Loy and Cecilia Bartoli as Ariodante reappeared after his failed suicide as partly female see photo above , a transition that continued into the final scene where la Bartoli lost her beard as well but she did, amusingly, maintain her exquisite trouser role imitation-male movement. The conceit quite evidently was that there was finally a union of male and female, at once completing human complexities of the two individual human psyches, and dramatically wrapping up the story in marital union.

Cecilia Bartoli Ariodante , Christophe Dumaux Polinesso , dancers But finally it remained certain that the magnificent Bartoli had always been la Bartoli and never Ariodante. And certainly it could not matter to the seven singers of the opera where they might find themselves either. Thus sometimes the actors were in simple contemporary dress, sometimes in current formal attire, sometimes in Baroque period costumes. Most of all stage director Loy indulged the famed indulgent smile of the Renaissance poet Lodovico Ariosto, the author of the stanzas of his epic Orlando Furioso from which the tale is taken.

Like Ariosto we too, together with the evening's singers indulged these chivalric characters in their wishes and disappointments, their plotting and undoing, their anger and joy, their deceits and generosity, their weaknesses and strengths. There was no place, and time stood still. This was our shared joy with the artists in this remarkable production. Early music conductor Gianluca Capuano wrenched every possible nuance of tone from the truly splendid voices of Les Musicians du Prince, a new orchestra in the service of Albert II of Monaco founded by Cecilia Bartoli.

American soprano Kathryn Lewec met her halfway, enthralling us in her extended laments and thrilling us in her joy. The villains of this operatic extravaganza were both French [! Canadian bass Nathan Berg suffered mightily and exulted greatly as the King of Scotland. His able leutenant was sung by Swedish tenor Kristofer Lundin. Norwegian National Ballet choreographer Andreas Heise threw some very witty twenty-first century steps and poses into his sort of convincing facsimile of French Baroque dance.

Set design by Johannes Leiacker, costume design by Ursula Renzenbring, and lighting by Roland Edrich provided the utmost in measured teutonic theatrical chic to this magnificent production. Though it really was not crumbling, decaying socialist housing, it was actually a vagina shaped cavity into which thrust two phallic platforms, in and out repeatedly throughout this long, loud, gross evening.

Heroically voiced soprano Nina Stemme, indisposed, sang but the first two of five performances. She was replaced for the remaining performances by the sweetly voiced rape victim of the opera's second scene, Russian mezzo soprano Evgenia Muraveva. Muraveva is already a first-class Katerina Ismailowa. She is young and pretty and has a beautiful lyric voice, ideal for a straight forward take on life in czarist Russia by a young, sympathetic and erotically motivated Soviet composer. But with cast concrete sets soaring 20 meters 60 ft into the loft of the Grosses Festspielhaus, with two suspended phallic appendages charging in and out, with high powered character singers in all other roles, and with the super-charged Vienna Philharmonic in the pit this fine young artist was out of her depth.

Stemme is not a simple woman. Kriegenberg, abetted by conductor Mariss Jansons made sex as ugly as it could possibly be in scenes of anal penetration, colossal, collective humping. Not that there were not some light, kitsch touches. The arrested atheist who proclaims that frogs have souls was a Shostakovich look alike, the policemen effeminately cooked, wove and crocheted, the priest was dead drunk, etc. Nina Stemme as Katerina, Brandon Jovanovich as Sergey And further kitsch — there was sperm everywhere — flying feathers of pillows ripped apart, hundreds of little phallus sized cans of aerosol spewing thousands of tiny bubbles, bottles dispelling liquid through narrow necks.

Anniversaire

I would have loved to have been offended and amused by such grossness. Katerina Lvovna Izmaylova; Dmitry Ulyanov: Boris Timofeyevich Izmaylov; Maxim Paster: Zinowy Borisovich Izmaylov; Brandon Jovanovich: Shabby Peasant; Oleg Budaratskiy: Chief of Police; Valentin Anikin: Old Convict; Gleb Peryazev: First Worker; Oleg Zalytskiy: Chorus of the Vienna Statsoper; Vienna Philharmonic.

The rare and somewhat interesting Rossini! Torvaldo e Dorliska comes just after Elisabetta, Regina di Ingleterra the first of his nineteen operas for Naples — a huge success, and just before Il barbiere di Siviglia in Rome — a failure. But Torvaldo e Dorliska is a dramma semiseria — a horse of a quite different color. Alaimo is a performer of stature and of great presence, and is a powerful singer who evokes sympathy. These attributes confused this current Pesaro edition of, Torvaldo e Dorliska a remount of its production directed by Mario Martone. Meanwhile Dorliska, abducted into the castle, is slapped around by the Duke to try to get her to marry him.

Everyone rebels against the Duke for various reasons and he is led off to prison. After all that we were quite confused as we had come to like Mr. Alaimo even though everyone on stage hated him. Director Mario Martone and his designer Sergio Tramonti set this Polish tale somewhere with lots of thick foliage, all the better to mask his thugs as they came and went, and finally hide the revolutionaries as well.

The setting had all the atmospheres of incipient Romanticism. Besides the un-Romantic brutal slapping of Dorliska Mr. The entire cast in the Act II finale As usual in Pesaro there were fine singers who created this evening of pure delight. Of particular note was young Georgian soprano Salome Jicia as Dorliska who raged and spat in secure Rossinian language, and Russian tenor Dmitry Korchak who delivered Torvaldo with aplomb though missing was an innocence and charm we might have liked in this young lover. Pesaro regular, bass Carlo Lepore convinced us as the duplicitous gatekeeper we sympathized with his employer.

The greatest pleasures of the evening were being in the Teatro Rossini, a typical Italian horseshoe theater of perfect size for minor Rossini, the able orchestral playing of the Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini under conductor Francesco Lanzillotta who found the real Rossini, and most of all it was a lot of fun to have the opportunity to explore the ideals and the potential of opera semiseria in this production of undeniable charm. Coro del Teatro della Fortuna M.

Agostini; Orchestra Sinfonica G. Teatro Rossini, Pesaro, August 18, Impeccable casting — see photos. The comedy's huge success in Milan won a military draft exemption for the 20 year-old Rossini, and thus assured the world of its most impressive catalog of operas. La pietra del paragone is a bit like Cenerentola — which of the rich count's pursuers should he marry? There are two who care about his money and position, and one who cares about him. And so the antics continue, musical and physical, for another couple of hours. From the beginning Pier Luigi Pizzi never lets up, discovering new ways to animate the cubby holes of his set, including a swimming pool on the patio of his two story Malibu spread it is very California.

The scene-stealing count is into physical culture, and plays it to the hilt, illustrating the role's narcissism with absolutely splendid fioratura. Gianluca Margheri as Conte Asdrubale Each of the gold diggers has a champion, one a pretentious poet, the other a pretentious journalist. A hunting party ends up in a duel, the heroine concocts a trick of her own to seal the deal with the count. And the antics never stopped. It was slapstick humor and physical humor that somehow never became tiresome well, there were those who nodded off in our row and that sometimes motivated involuntary guffaws.

This Pizzi production has indeed become a classic. Not to be outdone Rossini proved himself unstoppable in musical antics, from patter arias, to patter duets and trios, not to forget a quintet with tons of patter. Vocal ornamentation flew around the stage and into the house via the much-used walkway fronting the pit. And the young composer from Pesaro gave his true lovers spectacular arias to cap the show — and that brought huge applause from the excited house those who were still awake.

With the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale of the RAI the maestro balanced the fever pitch of the musical and stage antics with workable tempos and measured energy, even finding elusive hints of the great Rossini from time to time. The three amazing buffos were Florentine bass baritone Gianluca Margheri as the super cool count, Benevento near Naples baritone David Luciano as the slimy journalist and Melzo-born near Milan bass baritone Paola Bordogna, a Pesaro mainstay, as the truly terrible poet.

All three are splendid singers as well as real performers who epitomize a new generation, or re-birth of buffo.

Oratorio d'Arthur Honegger, sur un texte de Paul Claudel

The ingenue diva, a charming performer, boasts splendid high notes. Cast and production information: Aya Wakizono; Baronessa Aspasia: Aurora Faggioli; Donna Fulvia: Gianluca Margheri; Cavalier Giocondo: Daniele Rustioni; Stage director, sets abs costumes: Pier Luigi Pizzi; lights: Adriatico Arena, Pesaro, August 17, That of Rossini in French and that of Lord Byron in English, Russian, Italian and Spanish , the battles of both Negroponte and of Missolonghi re-enacted amidst massive piles of plastic water bottles thousands of them that collapsed onto the heroine at Mahomet II's destruction of Corinth.

We were all eager participants, harangued lengthily and forcibly by a high priest of the Greeks to accept martyrdom. This famed theater collective had envisioned the production of this musical reproduction of the event with deft, intellectual whimsy, finding in the plastic water bottle metaphor sufficient depth to intrigue if not enlighten the audience for the nearly five hour duration of the performance. Not to mention several important, enigmatically-imaged banner filled parades through the audience. Rossini had broken new ground in Maometto II , thinking in larger and more complex dramatic blocks.

This magnificent aria earned the one huge ovation of the evening. Georgian bel canto diva Nino Machaidze suffered as only great Rossini divas may. This remarkable artist brought a musical intelligence that informed every phrase, suffusing the complex vocal lines with a unique expressive gravitas in richly colored voice.

It was indeed a brutal conflict of love and duty, all the more so because Mahomet, Luca Pisaroni, was very handsome in his red regalia, imposing in stance, and convincing in voice Mr. Pisaroni is a well-known Neapolitan Maometto II as well.

Historique de la ville

Rossini proved the enlightenment of this Muslim general who conquered Corinth by giving him an aria in which, stating his love of the arts, he declares he will not destroy Corinthian monuments. There was some applause. As expected from a symphony orchestra there was elegance of tone, limpidity of texture, and an easy virtuosity, attributes that responded to the transparency and clarity of score imposed by conductor Roberto Abbado. With such resources Mo.

The maestro achieved the rare and ephemeral plateaux of sustained lyricism that create absolute opera. Each August we Rossinians make our pilgrimage to Pesaro, his birthplace, in search of such transcendental evenings. The Greeks and the Turks, and there were a lot of them, were energetically enacted by the fine chorus of Teatro Ventidio Basso the opera house of Ascoli Piceno, a small city in Le Marche, the same province as Pesaro.

Coro del Teatro Ventidio Basso. La Fura dels Baus; Stage director and set designer: Carlus Padrissa; Costumes and video: Adriatic Arena, Pesaro, August 16, We, all of us -- the cast and audience -- were enthralled. It was never mere musical color, it was always word and phrase, a relentless concentration of affects from beginning to end. He bases much of what he does on Strehler's minimalistic principles and physical theater convictions. Gruber creates a theatrical language of abstractions, both in positioning and posturing.

It is entirely presentational, eschewing all sense of an actual world, remaining always an imaginary, artistic world where the word itself is the only reality. Both were consummate performers. There were many memorable scenes, among them the spellbinding duet as Nerone expounds the sensual splendors of Poppea to his poet friend Lucano, sung by English tenor Oliver Johnston. Hammer however in her program booklet remarks reveals herself needlessly pretentious as well as condescending to these superb young artists.

Emilie Rose Bry; Nerone: Gilles Aillaud; Re-creater of sets: By definition any Ruth Berghaus production is mythic, and not just because this mega famous stage director was intimately associated with Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble and his and East Germany's didactic Epic Theater. Berghaus thinks and acts in epically scaled proportions. Berghaus insisted on an equal balance of the musical and theatrical elements of opera. This in the light of "regietheater" which she more or less founded wherein the director is free to modify period, locale, even the story itself to didactic ends.

At the same time the music and text usually are sacrosanct, and must not be altered. All this plays out brilliantly in this production of Elektra from Dresden's Semperoper, where it remained in the repertoire until The orchestra sits, dramatically, on the stage! Strauss deemed that an expanded orchestra is necessary to create the colors necessary to his telling of this Greek tragedy, thus it becomes an absolute necessity for a Berghaus production.

With this outsized orchestra needing to sit on the stage Elektra's cellar could only perch above the orchestra. Berghaus simply transforms Elektra's prison into a perch from which the sisters see a world beyond their imprisonment and terror, and from which they search their salvation in the person of their brother Oreste who will murder his and their mother. It becomes therefore perfect Brechtian Epic Theater -- theater as a catalyst for change and renewal. With the orchestra on yhe stage displacing traditional operatic staging convention the primary Brechtian precept was present -- distancing the spectator and I indeed struggled with this distance from the work of art in order that he might understand, and presumably act on its message rather than to be absorbed into its world.

These many years later, and in a different and far advanced social and political structure I struggled to transform such didactic theater into contemporary art. For me however it remained very much a period piece, evoking impotent nostalgia for the avant-garde of the ephemeral ideals of a failed world, and a longing for real, contemporary avant-garde operatic art. This Lyon revival was very well cast, and convincingly conducted. It was a quite powerful if cold experience. Bernd Hofmann; La confidente de Clytemnestre: Pascale Obrecht; La porteuse de traine: Marie Cognard; Un Jeune serviteur: Patrick Grahl; Un Vieux serviteur: Ruth Berghaus; Revival stage director: Hans Dieter Schaal; Costumes: Opera Nouvel, Lyon, France, March 17, His staging of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde was a part of the Bayreuth Festival, and is his only staging of an opera.

Though a prolific playwright and dramaturg becoming finally the artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble, he himself staged few plays and then only in the last 15 years of his life. Rather he introduced multiple perspectives into his theater works, destroying linear storytelling and, in fact, drama itself in search of abstracted associations. Theater's "fourth wall" was in fact an often visible scrim, referenced early in the evening by Isolde placing her hands directly on the [not merely imaginable, but quite real] fourth wall to indicate its boundary and, in fact, significantly, the box's separation from the audience itself.

The famed love scene of the second act was realized as two simultaneous monologues, the lovers met by placing their hands on an imaginary wall that isolated each from the other. The dreamy intensity of the love duet was rendered by the protagonists kneeling side by side, in separate prayers to love.

Ann Petersen sings the "Liebestod" The stage box became Tristan's decaying chateau in the delirium, its floor now strewn with dead leaves, Tristan resting in a dilapidated easy chair. Blocks of intense color, first red then gold heralded Isolde who shed several cloaks to deliver, finally her "Liebestod" in a golden gown, motionless, breaking through the fourth wall at last, singing directly to us. The squares of color, large and small, throughout the opera -- on the walls, floor and ceiling -- visually created the suggestion of separated emotional spaces, reinforcing the abstractions of the dramatic spaces of the protagonists.

The staging itself kept each of the protagonists in oblique, abstractly linear movement, intersecting only in the rare moments of action. If nothing else the production itself made a splendid evening of abstract visual art, and this alone was sufficient to propel it to mythic status. Separating the protagonists, isolating each in a unique space placed enormous responsibility on its artists to create individual theatrical and musical worlds -- it is certainly a very difficult requirement, and it may simply have demanded too much.

If hopefully this responsibility was fulfilled in Bayreuth back in it was not just now in Lyon. On the stage the singers were left helplessly on their own, conductor Hartman Haenchen absorbed in a quite detailed reading of Wagner's score, a reading that excluded the sweep of sensual poetry, the dynamic force of poetic delirium and the depth of tragic, Romantic love.

Ann Petersen; Roi Marke: Patrick Grahl; Un timonier: Chorus and Orchestra of the Opera de Lyon. Opera Nouvel, Lyon, France, March 18, Back to the operatic days when the book took top billing and the composer's name was in the fine print. Pommerat turned 40 years-old he made a pact with a group of actors to create a show each year for 40 years. Thus he has a lot of experience creating shows and intends to create a lot more. He authored a Pinocchio in This Aix Pinocchio is big, great big and truly magnificent.

It is grand opera complete with a ballet! Thus it was to that world that the mostly French audience of this international festival ascended. It is a perch that makes an intellectual, or theatrical game of animating fancy theatrical and musical genre with low-life characters, values, aspirations and situations. But not without intervention from much higher forms of life and art. Like la grande musique classique oft referred to in Mr. Maybe here is where the actual music of the evening might be mentioned.

The sound world accompanying Mr. This fine composer gamely built the complex world of Mr. Boesmans took a bow at the end of the show, sadly missing from the opening night accolades to the stage was Mr. The music was always attractive, as was of course Mr. And, yes, the ballet — that was scene 16 of 24 , about the place of the traditional grand opera fourth act ballet.

Francophonie

A group of ragamuffins were called onto the stage to seemingly rap dance to the howling klezmer band an accordion, saxophone and violin who were in fact on-stage much of the evening, chiming in charmingly in all sorts of occasions. His spoken French was brilliantly clear, as was his sung French to the degree that it was not included in the supertitles. She created a real Pinocchio, that is she found the brashness, the brattiness, the intelligence, the soft spots and finally the dignity of the brat becoming a real boy on his way to a classical music concert.

As usual at the Aix Festival casting was exemplary, mastery of vocal technique a given, appropriate colors of voice in place, physique and personality of actor in harmony with character. The visual language is minimalism, the colors black and white, light and dark, stark and bright. The effects were huge, the moments were precise, the video seamlessly integrated to deploy massive, epic images. It was everything you expect from the minimal means of studio theater magnified with taste and intelligence to technically complex grand opera proportions.

Vincent Le Texier; Le pantin Pinocchio: This new production by the Aix Festival was awaited with bated breath, Tcherniakov no stranger at the Aix Festival with two recent, unforgettable Don Giovanni under his belt, and the Aix Festival debut and role debut of conducting star Pablo Heras-Casado. The bar has been set always deeper into re-imagining the piece, and now Dimitri Tcherniakov has simply knocked the bar off its pinnings. It is the naked destruction of a human psyche, Carmen is merely its means. Not only the male anima is destroyed by an unfathomable sensation of maybe love, so also is the female anima destroyed.

The tragedy sinks to the most elemental level of human existence, feeling laid bare. It is ugly, not cathartic. Maybe you will be able to — there are five more performances and the production will travel to Luxembourg. I could not find a Carmen , this staging was not a real, working metaphor. But yes, the experience was pure gesamtkunstwerk , and high art, very high art. Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado gave corpus to the stage. It was orchestrally full-throated, forcing out always intense feeling, i. He took the Seguidilla to impossible hysterical frenzy, rendered the third act idyll as intense uncertainty, promise and frustration.

As Tcherniakov laid naked his victims, the maestro flayed their feelings. The extent of these changing emotions were exponentially explored, her persona and her voice able to find always another elaboration, another level of feeling, another release of spirit. American tenor Michael Fabbiano has the young tycoon swagger, the thirst for the ultimate experience, the blatant bravery, the unstoppable drive, the hidden vulnerability and the final weakness of all heroes. May you too beware of self discovery. Sung by French-Danish soprano Elsa Dreisig she used a bell-like purity of tone, in fact of metallic strength to push her husband into finding deeper feelings for her, i.

The smugglers were simply magnificent, the quintet a masterpiece of execution. Essentially the same set as his Don Giovanni which he used for his two distinctively different stagings perhaps Tcherniakov will use this set as well to stage a second edition of this Aix Carmen. There will always be something more to say.

Michael Todd Simpson; Frasquita: Guillaume Andrieux; Le Remendado: But were we enlightened? His accomplishment was to take all the fun out of this over-indulged dramma giocosa and let us know that it makes a very significant point that we all are Don Giovanni. It was not a political statement. Philippe Sly as Don Giovanni, David Leigh as the Commendatore And finally the Don was delivered to his fate by taking all his clothes off except his briefs which were more or less the discretely placed loin cloth of the Christian crucifixion.

As usual the Aix Festival casting was impeccable. Impeccable for this concept. Young Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly was the Don. This unique artist projects deep energy and unstoppable force. His youthful physique projected an innocence for the Don of this concept. Wigged with long hair, his final image was absolutely Christ-like. An announcement was made before the performance that he was ill, but would perform.

Perhaps intended, perhaps because of illness Mr. This was the moment in the performance when the extraordinary communicating power of this young artist was most apparent. Unlike the usual equality of master and servant in Mozart, Mr. Slovakian tenor Pavol Breslik made the arias of a beautifully voiced Don Ottavio among the high points of the evening.

In harmony with the concept the Commendatore, sung in beautiful, youthful tone by American bass David Leigh, morphed into one of the universal crowd. Italian soprano Eleonora Buratto who makes her debut at the Met this fall, sang Donna Anna in a full throated voice of both power and agility. Overheard comments at intermission lamented pitch problems in both voices though I did not notice such issues. As usual Zerlina and Masetto went through their paces. Director Sivadier presented them with the formidable challenge of singing their duets placed on opposite sides of the stage.

All splendid singers they came together wonderfully in the their second act chance encounter finding a gorgeous musical sublimity that we wish for and sometimes get in Mozart operas. His orchestra, comprised of players on 19th century instruments, made a dark, scratchy sound continuum that compounded the stultifying austerity of the directorial concept.

The bright colors on the stage offered little relief. Nahuel di Pierro; Donna Anna: Eleonora Buratto; Don Ottavio: Pavol Breslik; Donna Elvira: Krzysztof Baczyk; Il Commendatore: Alexandre de Dardel; Costumes: In recent years the Aix Festival has focused on Stravinsky, having presented enlightened productions of his pre-American period operatic works — the Peter Sellars production of Oedipus Rex last year and the Robert Lepage production of Le Rossignol in As for Coeur de Chien McBurney worked with British set designer Michael Levine for this new production, and much the same setting resulted — a white platform and solid white walls.

But the walls are really paper walls that at strategic moments are torn through. This as opposed to the unit set of the famed David Hockney production one fondly recalls. The production was precisely conducted by Swedish maestro Elvind Gullberg Jensen replacing Daniel Harding who withdrew because of an injured wrist. The careful conducting seemed at odds with, and far away from the energy and brutality of the physical production, i.

Evidently McBurney perceives Stravinsky and Auden, intellectually important, culturally alienated emigrants, as wanting to reveal and illustrate the inherent shallowness of the broader American civilization. Stravinsky the neo-classicist is not universally admired, the detail and repetitiveness of his compositions in this period verging on the psychotic according to some critical estimations. American bass baritone Kyle Ketelsen sculpted Nick Shadow on a level and energy far exceeding that of his compatriots.

Julia Bullock; Tom Rakewell: Paul Appleby; Nick Shadow: David Pittsinger; Mother Goose: Hilary Summers; Baba la Turque: English Voices; Orchestre de Paris. The Aix Festival opened five operas, all new productions, on five consecutive evenings. Erismena in Aix was an incredible feat, captivating its audience for nearly three hours, evoking a thunderous applause. Its dramatis personae seducing us with their airs and ariosos, their elaborate recitatives and a final madrigal sung by its two sets of lovers, four soprano voices interweaving with such sweetness that we too drowned in their eternal raptures of love.

It took a long time to get to that madrigal, but no one minded. It was the youth and the charm and the excellent artistry of these artists that made the inanities of Venetian opera into high art and great entertainment. Two violins and two wind players added a plentitude of additional colors for the concerted pieces. There were always new combinations to support the complications on the stage — from the roughness of Baroque violins, the violence of the cornetti, the sweetness, then unleashed chirping of the flutes, the warmth of full ensemble, the thundering intended of the organ.

It was a very busy pit, Mo. It was concentrated, joyous music making. The platform On stage there was nothing but a suspendible platform of transparent metal mesh, two elevated doorways, a canopy of suspended light bulbs and five or so cafe chairs from a junk pile somewhere. Think minimalism but do not think it was minimal. Moving these elements every which way as the situations changed throughout the evening was a monumental task. And there was a multitude of lightbulbs, some of which even knew to burst with a bang when there was a revelation down below!

The production requirements and accomplishments were formidable. There was no metaphor. The imagined story of pseudo-Roman history was told as written in this abstract, contemporary setting, French director Jean Bellorini moved his actors on and off the sometimes suspended platform, carefully established a space for each of the arias, changed his actors positions in direct dialogue to punctuate statement, and displaced them in a sudden blackout into a pool of light to utter an inner thought. Bellorini also masterminded the lighting that was of formidable complexity and huge effect.

The bows This weighty production effort was effectively absorbed, even eclipsed by the individual performances. These four artists delivered the final, mesmerizing, four part madrigal. The man who lost it all but gains a daughter and an heir, the Median king Erimante was solidly sung and acted by Russian bass-baritone Alexander Miminoshvili. New Zealand tenor Jonathan Abernathey was the strong voiced, virile lieutenant to King Erimante, these the two male voiced male roles.

The program booklet included a two-page, small print synopsis of the story of the opera. No one but no one could have made heads or tails of it. This excellent production took it all in stride and made an evening of admirable, comprehensible and highly amusing theater. Andrea Vincenzo Bonsignore; Alcesta: Stuart Jackson; Clerio Moro: This Marseille edition achieved an artistic stature rarely found hereabouts, or anywhere. Roubaud is a minimalist. Eschewing all metaphor he favors image.

Thus in recent stagings he has made much use of video washes projected onto substantial, abstract architectural shapes. His stagings occur in abstract ambience rather than specific locale. For this Don Carlo he was joined by long term collaborators, Avignon based set designer Emmanuelle Favre and Marseille based costume designer Katia Duflot. The video designer was Virgile Koering of Montpellier origins. Finally he imagined a video procession of Flemish youth marching to their martyrdom. Yolanda Auyanet as Elisabetta, Teodor Llincal as Don Carlo Based on intimacy and privacy such conceptual simplicity informed every scene.

Don Carlo lay supine at the feet of Elisabetta for much of their fraught, post Fontainebleau encounter this was the 4 act version. Eboli lay supine at the feet of Elisabetta to confess her betrayal. Every scene deployed its actors in abstract, emotionally charged positions, or abstract, strategically defined positioning rather than in active dramatic encounter.

Dramatic moments were indeed pointed, but only to extend possibility of amplitude and expansion of the existential moment. And that they did without exception. If bass Nicolas Courjal is too young to be an actual Philip II, he is vocally able to find an immediacy of plight with an energy and passion that were not resignation. Italian mezzo Sonia Ganassi as Eboli unleashed sophisticated, mature vocalism and Rossinian confidence plus solid, secure high notes to make Eboli grovel magnificently in self pity.

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