Florian Sempey

Les Indes galantes

Clément Cogitore adapts a short ballet excerpt from Jean-Philippe Rameau's Les Indes galantes, with the help of a group of Krump dancers and three choreographers on the 3rd Stage of the Paris Opera: Bintou Dembele, Igor Caruge, and Brahim Rachiki. Krump is a dance style that originated in the ghettos of Los Angeles in the 1990s. It emerged as a result of the riots and brutal police repression that followed the beating of Rodney King.

Dardanus

At the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, Raphaël Pichon conducts a new production of Rameau's opera Dardanus, with the ensemble Pygmalion, in a staging by Michel Fau and a choreography by Christopher Williams.

Opéra National de Paris: Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots

Les Huguenots is a monumental fresco featuring various impossible loves in the context of the Saint Bartholomew Massacre. Andreas Kriegenburg places these timeless conflicts of love and religion in an immaculate setting in which the costumes appear yet more flamboyant and the victims’ blood more violently red.

Don Pasquale - Palais Garnier

“Foolish indeed is he who marries in old age.” Thus ends Don Pasquale: with a wise dictum not lacking in irony that sums up the disappointments of its hero, a rich bachelor keen to marry who is deceived by his nephew Ernesto and his young bride-to-be Norina. First performed in Paris in 1843, at the turning point of several eras, Don Pasquale, a composite and varied work, is the apotheosis of opera buffa. Performed for the first time at the Paris Opera, the production has been entrusted to the Italian director, Damiano Michieletto, who transports us directly to the sincerity and dramatic splendour at the heart of an apparently light‑hearted work.

Il turco in Italia - Teatro Real de Madrid

At the Teatro Real in Madrid, director Laurent Pelly and conductor Giacomo Sagripanti get to grips with Gioachino Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia (The Turk in Italy) – a delightful opera buffa teeming with colourful characters!

L'Ange de Nisida

Donizetti: Don Pasquale

First performed in Paris in 1843, at the turning point of several eras, Don Pasquale, a composite and varied work, is the apotheosis of opera buffa. Performed for the first time at the Paris Opera, the production has been entrusted to the Italian director, Damiano Michieletto, who transports us directly to the sincerity and dramatic splendour at the heart of an apparently light‑hearted work.

Rossini: La Cenerentola

Divested of its traditional attributes – glass slipper and pumpkin carriage – and dominated by a tyrannical stepfather instead of a cruel stepmother, Rossini’s la Cenerentola plays with these most conventional of fairy‑tale characters. Nonetheless Cinderella lives in a closed world devoid of tenderness and under the yoke of the tormentor whom she protects. Deep beneath her goodness smoulders a fire that her encounter with the prince will set free… Guillaume Gallienne subtly highlights the halftones of this dramma giocoso, somewhere between opera buffa and opera seria, and ranging from sombre melancholy to the burlesque.

Il barbiere di Siviglia

The staging of Gioacchino Rossini's two-act comic opera, with libretto by Cesare Sterbini, at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma during the 2016/2017 season.

Royal Opera House: La Bohème

Puccini’s passionate opera is conducted by Antonio Pappano and stars a superb young cast including Nicole Car, Michael Fabiano and Mariusz Kwiecień, in a new production by Richard Jones.