TOSCA – REVIEW OF 2025 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival is celebrating its 50^th anniversary season and that speaks of its longevity and the high quality of its productions. For those who have not been there, it is held in the Alice Busch Opera Theatre on the shores of Lake Otsego in upstate New York. Doesn’t ring a bell? How about it is next door to Cooperstown, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame? That’s better.

 This year the Festival offers four operas among other events. The operas represent the usual eclectic choice this year of the effervescent Artistic and General Director Rob Ainsley. Puccini’s Tosca is the staple. Sunday In The Park With George is the American classic musical. Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress is the adventurous 20^th century classic  and The House on Mango Street with music by Derek Merkel and libretto by Sandra Cisneros and Bermel is a new opera.

Director Louisa Proske and Designer John Conklin offer a unique, imaginative and brilliant production of Puccini’s masterpiece. They have their own take on the opera and despite some aspects that may strike us as unorthodox or head-scratching the result is a marvelous production.

First, the singers. You can’t have a Tosca without a highly qualified soprano. American soprano Michelle Bradley delivers a stunning performance in the lead role. She has a big, brilliant and expressive voice that simply knocks you over. She can be the jealous woman who goes crazy over the idea that her lover Cavaradossi is painting another beauty, a passionate lover in her duets with the same man and a fury when confronted by a sadistic would-be rapist. She can belt out her phrases and express tender memories as in “Vissi d’arte”.    

The other essential part of the opera is the sadistic Scarpia sung here by American bass-baritone Greer Grimsley. Scarpia relishes his lust and tells us he prefers force over consent. He is a rapist. He has the great scene with Tosca where he tries to seduce her and rape her. He thunders his joy at torturing people and at his absolute control over them. We watch with delight as Tosca stabs him to death on the bed in his office where he had a woman before Tosca arrived.

 

Greer Grimsley as Baron Scarpia, Yongzhao Yu as 

Mario Cavaradossi, and Kellan Dunlap as Spoletta. 

Photo Credit: Kayleen Bertrand/The Glimmerglass Festival

American tenor Yongzhao Yu sings a fine Cavaradossi. He sings a sound E lucevan le stelle but he is out sung in his duets with Tosca.

Proske and Conklin put their own stamp on the production. As the lights go on, the set appears and it seems that the monumental interior of the Church of St. Andrea where the first act is set is being renovated. There are tarps and scaffolding all around except for the back of a large easel and a small Madonna on a pedestal. We never see what Cavaradossi is painting. The tarps do fall for the Te Deum at the end of the act but there is no spectacular splendor.

The second act is in Scarpia’s presumably opulent office. The furniture is ordinary to cheap and there is a bed with a women getting dressed after having finished the obvious. There is a table, a bathroom with a shower and a cheap desk. The torture room is in the back.

All the furniture from Scarpia’s office is removed for the third act which is supposed to take place atop the Castel Sant’Angelo. It does not. There is no parapet for Tosca to jump off and Proske solves the problem with a gun. Tosca shoots herself.

We may miss the Zeffirellian grandeur but surprisingly the changes do not take away from the drama and effectiveness of the production. There are many nice touches. When the sacristan Sergio Martinez sees Cavaradossi’s painting he is startled and when he sweeps the floor, he pushes the dirt under the tarps. Funny.

For the Shepherd’s Song, Proske develops a scene with a small angel, a priest and a ritual with the Madonna (I think) appearing. It is cute and necessary for the stage to be cleared for  the following scene.

Proske along with Conklin gives us an original and stunning production of an old chestnut.

Conductor Joseph Colaneri leads the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra and Chorus to a rousing performance that earns them all a standing ovation.

The Glimmerglass Festival strikes a significant note for freedom and democracy. The cover of its impressive 158-page program shows an unprepossessing picture of a wall. In fact, it is the space where Cavaradossi will be killed and Tosca commits suicide. The photograph on the program is not an accident. Tosca is about political oppression, abuse of power and murder and torture of people.

Before the opera begins, we read projected on a screen the words Prof. Timothy Snyder about tyranny. I do not recall the exact text but these words from him give you the idea: We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. He is talking about America today and the Festival shows guts where many Americans cave in to despotism.

Bravo Glimmerglass Festival.

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Tosca by Giacomo Puccini is being performed ten times until August 16, 2025, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater as part of the Glimmerglass Festival Cooperstown, New York. Tickets and information www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto 

LOUISE – REVIEW OF 2025 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Louise is an opera by Gustave Charpentier that has the distinction of being the first opera of the twentieth century or so they tell us. Charpentier (1860-1956) had a long life but wrote only one viable opera. It was successful for a while, but it has fallen out of favour, and one is grateful to the Aix Festival for producing it. 

It is a love story that branches out into family dynamics, social commentary especially about women’s rights and provides a vignette of moral standards of the time.

Louise (Elsa Dreisig) is in love with Julien (Adam Smith), but she is caught in the social mores and family traps of the era and there are few choices for working class girls in late 19^th century France. She wants to start a new life with her lover in Paris, the symbol of freedom, but her parents do not approve of her leaving them. She rebels and does move to Paris. but the breakup with her parents and her choice of work as a seamstress are not completely successful. In the end she does find happiness with her lover and with life in Paris, but she is wracked with guilt about her decision.

In the midst of enjoying the pleasures of freedom, love and parties, her mother (Sophie Koch) shows up and breaks up the party by telling Louise that her father is not well. Louise returns home to the tense and unhappy atmosphere and eventually she finds the strength to break the chains of family pressure and morality of her class and leaves her father and his curses.

Despite its broader tentacles, this is a sappy story, but Charpentier gives us a lot more than that and makes Louise an enjoyable work. He adds a couple of dozen characters from Louise’s place of work and Parisian society and creates a celebration with Louise’s coworkers as well as street parties with a colorful and fascinating cross section of working-class Paris.

It includes a crowd of pleasure seekers, street vendors and a night prowler who calls himself The Pleasure of Paris (played colourfully by Adam Smith). Soon Louise’s co-workers join the festive crowd, and all present a vivid and joyous scene in the opera. In the meantime, Julien is serenading Louise and her co-workers tease and even ridicule her, but in the end the two lovers leave together. 

Scene from Louise, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2025 

Photo: © Monika Rittershaus

The two lovers escape and move into their own apartment and Louise sings the opera’s most famous aria “Depuis le jour” about how wonderful life is, about being in love, about her first kiss, about life in Paris. It is beautifully done by Dreisig.

Nicolas Courjal starts as a tired, and brooding father who adores his daughter but ends up as a nasty man who cannot let his daughter grow up. Sophie Koch starts as a tyrannical mother, overprotective of her daughter but her character matures and, in the end, she ends up breaking away from the patriarchal family. The adoring father does not appear to accept change.

The four singers who handle the immediate family show vocal beauty without being stressed with pyrotechnics. The crowd scenes are handled beautifully, and they provide a much-needed balance to the family squabble and the need for the young lovers to break away from the apron strings of the traditional family of the day and strike a note of freedom and of course give us Paris as a symbol of liberty.

The set by Etienne Pluss consists of the stage of the Théâtre de l’Archevêchê being turned into a large well-appointed room. There are couches lined up at the back with large windows above that. This could be a huge waiting room, and it does not represent the home of Louise’s working-class family. The basic structure serves as the humble apartment of the lovers and her workplace as well as the street party. The windows are shuttered and closed to indicate change of venue, but the changes are subtle, and we prefer to watch the action rather than the set changes.

In the end this production of Louise expertly directed by Christof Loy presents us with a coherent, well-done work that deserves more attention and productions than it is getting. Loy and dramaturg Louis Geisler add a nice touch at the end of the opera. Louise’s mother exits with her when she leaves her family home. The mother has seen the light. The father has not.

Giacomo Sagripanti conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Opera of Lyon in a vivacious performance of a highly enjoyable night at the opera.

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Louise by Gustave Charpentier was performed a total of four times until July 13, 2025, at the Théâtre de l’Archevêchê, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press

THE NINE JEWELLED DEER – REVIEW OF 2025 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Nine Jewelled Deer is the intriguing title of an opera offered by the Aix-en-Provence Festival. It is by Sivan Eldar, Ganavya Doraiswamy and Lauren Groff who are unknown to me, adding mystery to intrigue. It played at Luma Arles for three performances and that required a bus ride from Aix-en-Provence to Arles. It also performed in the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix-en-Provence for an additional three times.

What is it all about? A program note gives us the basic elements of the new work whose premiere we are about to witness. I can do no better than to quote it:

A thousand-year-old cave painting in China depicting a drowning man saved by a marvellous deer whose existence he must not reveal; a cramped kitchen in modern-day India where an old woman takes in victims of life’s misfortunes and heals them through song; the garden of a former prostitute, where a monk teaches the secrets of “Enlightenment” – that supreme state of knowledge and compassion.

The opera is the work of Sivan Eldar, a composer and instrumentalist with broad experience. Her biographical information states that she started as a pianist and vocalist and has broadened her interests into electric and electronic instruments and more. Ganavya Doraiswamy was raised in Tamil Nadu, South India where she learned singing, harmonium and classical Indian dance. She further studied spirituality “with a focus on freeing individuals from power relationships and from identity ascription” according to her bio.

The performers are Ganavya Doraiswamy and Anura Sairam, vocalists, with   Nurit Stark, violaist and violinist, Sonia Wieder-Atherton, cellist, Dana Barak, clarinettist, Hayden Chisolm, saxophonist, Rajna Swaminathan, percussionist and Augustin Muller playing electronic – Ircam.  

Scene from The Nine Jewelled Deer. 

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2025 © Ruth Walz

The performance takes place in a large hall in Arles where seats are installed on one side, and we watch the action on the ground level in front of us. This is not a theatre in a traditional form. The players named above open the show with one of them asking us to sing a one-phrase refrain in Tamil as she sings the song. Most of the audience joins in what sounds like a beautiful, perhaps haunting, prayer or invocation

The names of jewels are projected in English on a screen. DIAMOND, PEARL, SAPHIRE, CORAL, EMERALD etc. with comments about each of them by one of the vocalists but I do not know who. The instrumentalists play music that varies from melodious to dissonant, to jazz and such that I cannot put my finger on all the types that they cover.

The spoken text and the songs are in English or in Tamil. There is one section that lasts for about half an hour where a grandmother tells a story to a young listener and then the listener responds to the story, all in Tamil without surtitles.

The story of the drowning man and the deer that saved his life is told. The writers are careful not to identify the deer as a stag or a doe so as not to appear sexist. The pronoun “it” would serve perfectly without the necessity of any further explanation.

The blurb quoted above contains promises that may all have been broached but I did not get them all and some may have been in Tamil. The saved man keeps his promise to the marvelous deer and did not disclose who saved him from drowning until the King who is trying to find the deer because his Queen wants it, offers a reward including some virgins and the poor saved man breaks his promise and reveals his saviour. The King finds the deer and is about to shoot it with his bow but the arrow melts and the deer is saved.

The show stretches the definition or at least my narrow idea of opera but that is of no importance. New and innovative works are not just desirable but necessary. The Nine Jewelled Deer is based on ancient Indian tales that relate stories of Budha’s previous lives and incarnation. The opera is based on one of the numerous Jataka Tales that are, unfortunately, unfamiliar to me. There are projections of paintings during the performance and unfortunately, I could not understand their meaning.

The production is directed by the wild, wildly imaginative and brilliant Peter Sellars. I do not expect to understand what he is doing on a first (at least) viewing.
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THE NINE JEWELLED DEER by Sivan Eldar, Ganavya Doraiswamy and Lauren Groff, directed by Peter Sellars, visual artist Julie Mehretu played at Luma, Arles and at the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix-en-Provence from July 6 to 14, 2025 as part of the Aix-en-Provence Festival.  

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press 

THE STORY OF BILLY BUDD, SAILOR - REVIEW OF 2025 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Billy Budd is a fictitious character created by Herman Melville in an unfinished novella known as Billy Budd, Sailor. It drew much literary attention competing with the author’s much more famous Moby Dick. Benjamin Britten was drawn to the story and composed an opera based on a libretto in four acts by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier that opened in 1951. It was rewritten as a two-act opera that premiered in 1960.

Like all good stories, Billy Budd is based on a simple story that opens much more when pondered. Billy Budd is a young, innocent, decent and handsome young man who is “impressed” (taken by force) as a sailor on The Indomitable, a warship. He encounters decency and evil, hatred and malice and eventually is convicted and sentenced to death in accordance with articles of war.

Oliver Leith did the musical adaptation. Ted Huffman did the stage direction, adaptation, costume design and accessories. The two have syncopated Britten’s work into a chamber opera that ten singers who perform all the roles play all the instruments in the intimacy of the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix-de-Provence. They deliver a captivating 140 minutes of opera that is emotionally intense and gripping.

The story begins with Captain Edward Fairfax Vere (Christopher Sokolowski who also plays Squeak), a naval officer and man of culture, as an old man recalling the events of his life, struggling with his conscience and remembering the story of Billy Budd. We then go back to 1797 on the deck of The Indomitable where the decent Billy Budd encounters the ship’s Master-at-arms John Claggart (Joshua Bloom who also plays Dansker), an evil man. This is where we go beyond the story of one man but are forced to think about good and evil, justice and injustice and innocence and corruption. 

Scene from The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor. 

Photo: © Jean-Louis Fernandez

Claggart plots to destroy Billy Budd, and he plots against him including attempting to bribe him into starting a mutiny. He brings Budd in front of Vere on trumped up charges and the innocent sailor is so shocked that he cannot utter a word. Billy Budd has a terrible stammer and is unable to speak under pressure. Vere is forced to condemn Budd to death, and he is hanged on the ship’s deck in a terrifically staged scene that that leaves you stunned. 

Baritone Ian Rucker as Billy Budd vocally exudes the innocence, eagerness and humanity of the young sailor. He knows that he is innocent even if in a moment of anger, he struck Claggart who died from the blow. The punishment for striking an officer is death and Billy Budd takes the inevitable punishment with grace. A wonderful performance. 

The venomous Claggart is performed with exceptional malice by bass Joshua Bloom. He struck me as a man with motiveless malignity, a description someone coined about the villainous Iago, Othello’s destroyer.  

Tenor Sokolowski’s Captain Vere presents perhaps the most interesting character because he represents more than just the events of 1797. He straddles the moral code of the warship with the knowledge of later reflection of what he did. Did he lack the moral backbone to refuse to execute an innocent man? Is he trying to salve his conscience in old age? It is a subject for discussion that Sokolowski sings so eminently well in his performance of the role.

The musicians deserve a special bow. Finnegan Downie Dear, conductor and keyboards, Richard Gowers, keyboards, Siwan Rhys, keyboards and George Barton, percussion. They are on stage behind the singers ready to lend a hand, when necessary,
A superb syncopation and presentation of Benjamin Britten’s opera.
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The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor  by Ted Huffman and Oliver Leith after Benjamin Britten played four times until July 10, 2024, on various dates at the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com

 James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press

LA CALISTO – REVIEW OF 2025 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas 

The Aix-en-Provence Festival offers a beautiful production of La Calisto, Francesco Cavalli’s 1651 wonderful opera at the Théâtre de l’Archevêchê. It is splendidly sung accompanied by the orchestra conducted by Sebastien Daucé and directed by Jetske Mijnssen. It has magnificent sets by Julia Katharina Berndt and it all adds up to a marvelous night at the opera. It is done in the open air under the stars and who cares if it starts at 9:30 p.m. and lasts until almost 1:00 in the morning.

La Calisto is based on Greek mythology via Ovid’s Metamorphoses and has a noble theme of saving the world, but the reality is a lot of testosterone-driven gods and mortals, and followers of the goddess Diana. That means virgins, gods and men and a lot of sexual attraction, rejection and tragedy turned into apotheosis.

The main story is about Callisto (Laurenne Oliva), the beautiful nymph and dedicated followers of the goddess Diana (Giuseppina Bridelli), the virgin goddess whose followers are of course virgins. Oliva has a gorgeous voice, and she defines a woman of class and high manners.

Enter Jupiter (Alex Rosen) who wants to save the world but as we know he has more testosterone than sense. He sees Calisto and wants her. She rebuffs him and he wants to rape her. But his companion and son Mercury (Dominic Sedgwick), the god of lies, suggests a gentler method: deceit. Jupiter disguises himself as Diana and approaches Calisto sexually. Calisto responds positively. Kudos to Rosen and Sedgwick as singers and performers. 

But we know that problems are inevitable. First, Calisto approaches the real Diana lovingly and is thrown out of the group of virgin followers. Worse is to come when Juno (Mrs. Jupiter) figures out her husband’s ruse and takes revenge on the poor Calisto but that can wait for a couple of hours. 

Scene from La Calisto,. Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2025 
Photo © Monika Rittershaus

In the meantime, the handsome shepherd Endymion (Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian) comes looking for Diana. He is madly in love with her, and she loves him but secretly because of her vow of chastity. Linfea (Zachary Wilder), an innocent virgin, has some amorous urges but she knows nothing about men and love. When the Satyr (countertenor Théo Imart) approaches her with a marriage proposal she rejects him, and he is very unhappy about that. The god Pan (tenor David Portillo) is also madly in love with Diana, but he too is rejected. Will Diana relent and accept sexual fulfilment. I won’t tell you everything.

Pan, the Satyr and Silvano (bass-baritone Douglas Ray Williams), decide to spy on Diana to figure out what she is up to! Well, she finds Endymion sleeping and sidles up to him amorously, but the three spying clowns see them. Endymion does not get anything.

We need more complications and some real fury. Who better than the harridan of the mythical world Juno (Anna Bonitatibus). She knows of Jupiter’s debauchery and descends to Earth for the details and revenge. She overhears Calisto's tears and questions her, recognizing in her story her husband's methods. Jupiter appears in the guise of Diana, but Juno recognizes him by the presence of his sidekick Mercury. In short, Juno figures out what her husband is doing.  

La Calisto has a large cast and many of the singers have more than one role. David Portillo sings La Natura. Pan and Furia. Jose Loca Loza plays Silvano and Furia. Imart sings Destino, Satirino and Furia. Bonitatibus is June as well as L’Eternita. Kudos for highest quality singing and acting.

There are amorous, humorous and dramatic complications carried by comic scenes, gorgeous arias and accompanying choral pieces that are a delight to the ear and the eye. 

The set by Berndt consists of a paneled stage with a revolving middle piece. Half of it is an open half circle whereas the other half resembles the rest of the stage. It is effective, practical and beautiful. The costumes by Hannah Clark are just what you expect immortals, nymphs and shepherds to wear. They may look suspiciously like fancy baroque attire but who are we to argue with the gods.

There is the ugly side of the opera where Juno turns Calisto into an ugly animal, a bear according to Ovid. But Fate intervenes and Calisto is turned into an eternal constellation. Jupiter and Callisto come down to earth to say farewell as a celestial choir celebrates the  lovers. And so do we.
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La Calisto by Francesco Cavalli  opened on July 7 and will be performed a total of eight  times until July 21, 2025, at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press

DON GIOVANNI – REVIEW OF 2025 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Aix-en-Provence Festival is in full swing for its 77^th season from July 4 to 21, 2025 in a picture-perfect medieval city. Its eclectic program of operas includes Don, Giovanni, an adaptation of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd as The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor, Cavalli’s La Calisto, The Nine Jeweled Thief, a new work by Siva Eldar and Ganavya Doraiswamy and Louise.

Don Giovanni is the big, classical opera of the season and it is conducted by the inimitable Simon Rattle with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The production is directed by Robert Icke, a brilliant theatre director who is making his debut as a director of opera.

Like all directors, Icke wants to put his own imprimatur on the production, and he does that in spades. There is a wide range of changes, tweaks, adaptations that a director can do even with a work as well known as Don Giovanni. He can dramaturge the libretto and change the era, add or delete characters and change the spirit of the work almost beyond description.

Ickes does all those things, and he adds so many twists that I could hardly keep up with a very familiar libretto. Don Giovanni opens with the dramatic overture, but Icke adds stage action during the playing of it. We see projected on a screen an old man in a room with a chair, table and some stereo equipment. He is trying with difficulty to get some music to play on his system. After a few minutes of trying, he succeeds in getting the overture to Don Giovanni to play. He falls on the ground and we get a closeup of him. He is apparently dead. I assume the old man is Don Giavanni but, by the end of the performance I think it could be the Commendatore. We saw the Commendatore killed in the first scene, but he walked off the stage instead of being carried out. We are used to seeing the Commendatore’s statue thundering in the final scene but according to Icke he makes several appearances during the performance. 

Andrè Schuen , Amitai Pat Photo (© Monika Ritterhaus)

My initial complaint to seeing the Commendatore, if it was him, was that I paid attention to the scene instead of listening to the great overture. The situation became worse when I could not figure out who is who as between Don Givanni and the Commendatore. And that is just the beginning of Icke’s tinkering more accurately bludgeoning Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s work.

Before outlining some other aspects of Icke’s approach, I want to give credit to the performers. I start with the women who excelled in their singing and acting. I start with Golda Schultz as Donna Anna. She is the tricky one who pretends to grieve for her father and is supposed to be engaged to and in love with Don Ottavio, but in fact is in love with Don Giovanni. Gorgeous voice and able to manipulate all situations, Schultz gives a bravura performance.

We note that Donna Anna comes out of her room in the opening scene where she was perhaps raped or at least molested, wearing a gray dress with no evidence of interference. She approaches Don Giovanni lovingly. We get her number.

Kudos to mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena as Donna Elvira. Don Giovanni seduced her and abandoned her and now she wants to find him and tear his heart out unless he comes back. (a slight qualification there). Kozena captures the pain, anger and longing of Donna Elvira as she belts out her complex arias. She expresses her anger as she is searching for Don Giovanni on the street and he “smells” a woman. According to Icke, she is in her bedroom. Sure.

Zerlina (soprano Madison Nonoa) is the pretty peasant girl on her wedding day Zerlina is lovely of voice and face (but not too bright) and she almost falls for Don Giovanni. I think Icke takes her a step further and she kisses him. She knows how to manipulate her nice Masetto (bass Pawel Horodyski) even after he gets a thrashing. Masetto is a peasant, but Icke makes no point of that,

Baritone Andre Schuen as Don Giovanni and bass Krzysztof Baczyk as Leporello make a fine pair of vocal scoundrels, but I am not sure what Icke has in mind about the first. I may well have missed Icke’s point about Don Giovanni but as I said I was following so many confusing strands, his message escaped me. I am still trying to figure out how he got into hospital and ended up running around with a pole for intravenous medication.  

Aside from Masetto, the other nice guy is Don Ottavio (tenor Amitai Pati) who is engaged to Donna Anna. Ottavio gets some beautiful arias expressing ardent love and Pati does a superbly expressive job.

In some scenes videos are projected in the top half of the stage and the bottom looks like a basement. There is frequent use of projections, and it is not always clear what they mean. At one point Leporello leads Donna Elvira from her upper storey apartment and Don Giovanni serenades her maid. Her maid looks like a 10-year-old girl whom we see several times. Is Don Giovanni asking her to dispel his sorrows, and compliments her lips as sweeter than honey and more? The word for this is paedophilia but is that what Icke is getting at? Icke has surpassed all bounds and has gone on an ego trip that has nothing to do with sound directing.

Simon Rattle with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra play Mozart brilliantly despite the confusion on stage and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir handles the choral parts superbly. Don Giovanni is probably indestructible but there are times when Robert Ickes makes you wonder.
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Don Giovanni by W.A. Mozart opened on July 4 and will be performed eight times until July 18, 2025, at the Grand Théâtre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com/ 

James Karas is Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE – REVIEW OF 2025 OPERA BASTILLE, PARIS, PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is one of the most popular operas in the repertoire which means one has many opportunities to see it. That is enjoyable of course but it may also develop ways of seeing the work and choices by different directors that may raise more eyebrows than cheers of approval.

The Paris National Opera wound up its 2024-2025 season at the Opera Bastille with a production of The Barber conducted by Diego Matheuz and directed by Damiano Michieletto. Matheuz took a deliberate pace where he could, but those patter arias forced breakneck rapidity and he came through.

The singers were popular with the audience. Led by a robust, full-throated baritone Mattia Olivieri as Figaro, tenor Levy Sekgapane as Count Almaviva, mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina as Rosina and bass-baritone Carlo Lepore as Doctor Bartolo they did creditable work in the vocal department.

The issue I have is with Michieletto’s view of the opera and his overall presentation of it. He creates a whole world or at least community for the life of the characters involved in the courtship of Rosina by Count Almaviva. In fact, he goes out of his way to make us see The Barber of Seville in his conception.

It is a modern-dress production and the first thing we see is an ordinary car parked in front of a tenement building. It turns out to be Count Almaviva’s car (I think) and we would have expected him to drive something sporty and hence more expensive, but we let it go by.

But we do pay attention to the building where we know Rosina lives as the ward of the elderly and obnoxious Dr. Bertolo who controls her life and, what is worse, wants to marry the delectable young lady.

Scene from The Barber of Seville, 2025 Opera Bastille, Paris.

They live on three floors of a less than classy building in a less-than-opulent neighborhood created by designer Paolo Fentin. Michieletto and Fentin want us to have a full and frequent view of Bartolo’s residence. The central part of the set revolves so we get a full view of every side of the tenement. The plain street front turns and we get to the side of the building with winding staircases to the third floor. We will see characters going up and down those stairs with alarming frequency with questionable necessity to do so.

Another turn and we see a cross section of the apartment with Rosina’s tiny bedroom on the main floor, several rooms above that where the music lesson will take place in one and much more elsewhere that I cannot recall.

On the third floor there may be a kitchen, and I think I saw a servant washing dishes there but with so much activity going on it was difficult to keep up with who was doing what, where.

There is BARRACUDA SNACK …& BAR on the left which was in business, and we saw people eating there. There are apartments to the left and right of the Bartolo residence and they are occupied, of course, and now and then they become part of the main action of Rossini’s work.

That is not all. This is a whole community and Michieletto wants us to see it in full life and action with people running up and down stairs, making noise and showing a vibrant neighborhood. The costumes are a motley of the working class type and Rosina wears a short black dress and leotards that could have been bought at Walmart if Paris has such a store.

The neighborhood gets more vibrant when Don Basilio (Luca Pisaroni) sings the famous aria “La calumnia.” There is no need for him to do much except deliver it with sonority and conviction. In this production he uses the stairs and goes all over the place. But that is not enough. There are people on the street holding anti-Almaviva signs nicely printed. The aria is heard in the first act, and we do not know that Lindoro is in fact the count and why and how do the neighbors know what Don Basilio is singing about?

It is impossible to ruin The Barber of Seville if you have decent singers, a good chorus and a good orchestra. This production had all of that in spades. Diego Matheuz conducted the orchestra and chorus of the Paris National Opera with exemplary playing and singing even if I thought he took some parts a bit on the slow side.

I have no complaints about the singers. They were kept so busy doing other things that sometimes I doubted they had time to concentrate on their vocal duties.

In fairness I should mention that I saw the 55^th performance of this production which received a positive reception from the audience. Chacun a son gout, as the French would say.            

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The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini continues until July 13, 2025, at the Opera Bastille, Paris, France. http://www.operadeparis.fr/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press