Tag Archives: theatre des champs elysees

Black and white Barber

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Laurent Pelly’s 2017 production of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Théatre des Champs Élysée  is classic Pelly.  The sets and costumes are very simple and essentially monochrome.  The sets in fact are constructed from flats painted as music paper.  The black, white and grey costumes are more or less modern and pretty nondescript.  But, in the classic Pelly manner, the action is fast paced and convincing.  There’s lots of synchronised movement and the physical acting and facial expressions are a bit exaggerated.  I toyed with the word “cartoonish” but that’s a bit crude if not entirely inaccurate.  The overall effect is positive.

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Brisk and attractive Figaro

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This recording of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro was made in 2004 and released on DVD, which won a Grammy.  It’s now been remastered and released on Blu-ray.  It was recorded at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris and directed by Jean-Louis Martinoty.  The production is visually attractive and well thought out but not concept driven in any way.  The sets are largely made up of 16th century paintings while the costumes are the operatic version of the 17th or maybe 18th century; low necklines, full skirts, breeches etc.  There are a few interesting touches.  Act 3 is set in the count’s curio room with dead reptiles, skulls and so on and it seems somehow to provoke extreme nostalgia in the countess during Dove sono.  For the most part it’s a highly competent, well paced effort though with nothing new or different to say.

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Armide at Versailles

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Lully’s Armide is pretty much the archetypal tragédie en musique.  It features an allegorical prologue praising Louis XIV’s multiple virtues, delivered as a dialogue by La Gloire and La Sagesse followed by five acts based on the Armida/Rinaldo story from Tasso.  There are also, of course, lots of ballet interludes.  As such, it isn’t all that easy to stage for a modern audience.  Robert Carsen and William Christie’s approach for their 2008 Paris production is to frame the story in the context of Versailles.

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Look! No hippogriff

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Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso is based, like so many operas, on an episode in Ariosto’s work of the same name.  In this case it relates the events that take place during Orlandos stay on the enchanted island of the sorceress Alcina.  There are two love triangles, enchantments and Orlando goes mad before order is restored, the island is disenchanted and Alcina, as befits a woman who gets uppity in an eighteenth century opera, is restored to her rightful place in the Outer Darkness.  Structurally it’s pretty typical of the period with a lot of showy arias in a variety of forms plus a couple of decent choruses.

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