(Photo: ©OMC Marco Borrelli) A Parisian critic during the belle époque once wrote about the Opéra de Monte-Carlo: “If only the Paris Opera could assemble for one special performance a cast equivalent to the one that the inhabitants of the little earthly paradise on the Mediterranean will be able to applaud all winter long!” (La Renaissance musicale, October 8, 1881) {…}
(Photo ©2024 Camilla Greenwell) In a recent interview with director Damiano Michieletto at the Venice production of “The Tales of Hoffmann,” he said: “At its heart it is a journey into fantasy. It is opera fantastique, after all!” One definition of the French word fantastique is: a term for a literary and cinematic genre and mode that is characterized by {…}
(Credit: Camilla Greenwell) At the very opening of Damiano Michieletto’s new production of “Carmen,” I was struck by a very vivid sense of déjà vu! Before the curtain rises, a very sombre, spectral lady enters the stage, dressed in black with lace mantilla. For a brief instant, I thought I was back, four days PREVIOUSLY in the same house, where {…}
