Tosca from Aix

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Conductor: Daniele Rustioni
Stage Director: Christophe Honoré

Floria Tosca Angel Blue
La Prima Donna Catherine Malfitano
Mario Cavaradossi Joseph Calleja
Il barone Scarpia Alexey Markov
Cesare Angelotti Simon Shibambu
Il sagrestano Leonardo Galeazzi

I was curious about the Tosca from the Aix-en-Provence Festival.  It was advertised to have two Toscas.  Well.  If you have spent enough time in show business, you recognize that this is a rehearsal being held in the home of the great Tosca from the past Catherine Malfitano.  She is most famous for her part in the movie of Tosca with Placido Domingo filmed entirely in Rome in the real places identified in the score.  Her home is filled with memorabilia from this great performance.

At the end of Act I instead of kneeling before the altar, they kneel before the picture of Catherine.  Angel Blue sings Tosca but plays herself.  She is coached by Catherine.  It's chaotic.  Most professionals know how to behave better than this.  Perhaps they're students.  The chorus members mob around the great lady, seriously scaring her.

After the first act, the feed begins to buzz loudly and does not stop until after Act II has started.  Instead of disappearing from view when they are not in the scene, everyone goes off into another part of the apartment. Do we go to the opera to see people being themselves? I think not.

Angel sings the big aria "Vissi d'arte" in her jeans, and suddenly we find ourselves in an homage to all the great Toscas, beginning with Callas and going on to Caballe, Verrett, Tibaldi, and ending with Catherine herself in her prime.  Today's Catherine confers the ultimate compliment--she gives Angel the Tosca costume to wear.  It was well done.  It asked for comparisons and we consented.

I didn't mind at all the mixing of reality and performance.  It worked much better than La Sonnambula from the Met.  The Diva is overcome with her real emotions.  I have to say I think Angel could have handled the role quite well on her own.  I ended up liking it very much.

Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen

Conductor:  Pinchas Steinberg
Stage director:  Jorge Lavelli

Torsten Kerl | Rienzi
Marika Schönberg | Irène, Rienzi's sister
Richard Wiegold | Steffano Colonna
Daniela Sindram | Adriano, his son
Stefan Heidemann | Paolo Orsini
Robert Bork | Cardinal Orvieto
Marc Heller | Baroncelli
Leonardo Neiva | Cecco del Vecchio
Jennifer O’Loughlin | The Messenger of Peace

Wagner's Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen, 1842, in a performance from Toulouse in 2013 is offered by medici.tv.  This infrequently performed opera has a dense back story.  Wagner was living in France at the time of composition and was strongly influenced by Grand Opera and Meyerbeer.  In fact it was Meyerbeer who rescued Wagner from debtor's prison and introduced him to someone in Dresden who produced the opera.  Everything in Grand Opera seems to be about politics, in this case medieval Roman politics where the opera is set.  What makes something a Grand Opera?  Heavy pomposity.  Ballet.  Historical subjects.  In Meyerbeer it seems to include coloratura arias but not here.

Another part of the back story for Rienzi is that it is supposed to have been a powerful influence on Hitler.  I think it was perhaps Rienzi the orator that attracted him.  He missed the part where everything ends in disaster.

The plot concerns freeing the Roman people.  Politics in the nineteenth century was chaotic and violent.  The nations Germany and Italy were formed during this time, and France restructured a few times.  It would make an interesting project to study the relationship between opera and contemporary politics.

Wagner seems to have wised up after this.  He remains extremely popular because operas about Minnesingers and Meistersingers (Tannhäuser and Die Meistersinger), Arthurian knights (Lohengrin and Parsifal), and mythical figures (Tristan und Isolde, Der fliegende Holländer and The Ring) don't arouse modern cultural animosity.  We want to blame him for Hitler, but concrete evidence doesn't seem to be there.

I digress.  The opera begins with films of rioting from various times and cultures.  It's intensely violent, but cuts away to the orchestra occasionally to ease the tension.

The Orsinis, who resemble the gangsters in West Side Story, are harassing Rienzi's sister.  A young man, Adriano, and the Colonni step in to rescue her.  There is some rioting followed by the entrance of Rienzi who brings peace.  He makes a speech to the crowd.  There is great singing and fabulous choral sections here.  Nothing gruesome happens.

Rienzi declares peace in a grand oration, but the overthrown nobles are understandably angry.  One of them tries to assassinate Rienzi, but he is wearing armor under his clothing.  They are led off by guards.  Adriano and Irène plead for mercy for his father, and Rienzi grants it.  This is quite thrilling, mainly because the singing is so fabulous.  The role of Rienzi is huge and very well sung.  A half-hour ballet goes here, but they have skipped it.

Act III features the real star of this show:  Adriano, the character who messes everything up, was written for Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient.  Schröder-Devrient is known for singing Fidelio and making it famous.

Rienzi's army kills both Orsini and Colonna, and Adriano swears revenge.  Rienzi offends the Pope, and that appears to be it.  Everything goes down in flames.  This is very well done, but the musical style is repetitive and endlessly bombastic.  I may not be particularly wild about this opera, but the tenor who sings Rienzi is amazing.  "Allmächt'ger Vater, blick herab!“the hit tune of this opera, comes in Act IV.  Recommended.  

Skip to about 3 1/2 minutes in. Unless you want to hear the prelude.

Les Troyens from the Paris Opera

I am viewing a film of Berlioz' Les Troyens from the Paris opera.

Conductor:  Philippe Jordan
Production: Dmitri Tcherniakov

The Trojans at Troy

Aeneas: Brandon Jovanovich
Cassandra: Stéphanie d'Oustrac
Coroebus, Cassandra's fiance: Stéphane Degout, bass

Something like a movie marquee announces in French and English that the Greeks have abandoned their positions around Troy, and the war is over.  The streets fill with celebrators.  This is a regie production of Berlioz' Les Troyens from the Paris opera.  The characters are introduced with text at the top of the screen.  Priam looks a lot like Generalissimo Franco.  The billboard clarifies the action as perhaps never before.

I found Act I very coherent.  We don't see a horse, but the death of Laocoon is vividly described.  Cassandra warns and laments, but no one listens.

Where Act II should begin, we see soldiers with automatic rifles enter and shake hands with Aeneas.  Hmm.  So are we to believe he is a traitor?  His wife is dead and sends him a note explaining she is ashamed by his betrayal.  This is unclear.  Perhaps I have completely misunderstood.  His own people still seem to honor him.

Priam and his wife are shown dead.  Stéphanie d'Oustrac is wonderfully intense.  The men all head off and leave the women to die or be taken into slavery.  They choose death, and Cassandra goes up in flames.  I seem to remember a play by Euripides called The Trojan Women which describes a somewhat different fate for them.

This part of the opera is well presented.

The Trojans at Carthage

Dido: Ekaterina Semenchuk
Aeneas: Brandon Jovanovich
Anna: Aude Extremo
Narbal: Christian Van Horn

A title announces that we are in a Psychological Center for Victims of the War.  The set looks a bit like a hotel lobby.  This is my third insane asylum opera after Carmen (also Tcherniakov) and Oberon.  This part of the staging has nothing to do with either Berlioz's opera or the staging of the first half.  Yes, people in war are often in need of psychiatric care, but the opera is about the triumph of Rome, not mental illness.  Perhaps it is better to just listen.  The audio is gorgeous.  This staging is definitely boo worthy.

I may never have realized before what a great opera for chorus this is.  Dido enters and the chorus holds up a homemade sign saying "Tu es notre Reine." [You are our queen.]  Aeneas's son holds up his cell phone to show pictures of Troy to Dido.  Ach!  One is interested in the translation because nothing in the visuals is giving you a clue.  I missed before that these people of Carthage are from the eastern Mediterranean, just like the Trojans.  That explains a lot.

A black guy comes in and Aeneas tries to beat him up.  Weird.  The essential feature of an insane asylum is the keepers who now enter in red vests and lead everyone out.  It is hard to imagine any other tenor besides Jovanovich playing this scene.  I'm determined to watch it to the end, but it gets goofier and goofier.

In Act IV the patients are in a circle, and enact a story.  They hold up signs to indicate where they are and what is going on.  The title of the story is "La Chasse Royale."  Perhaps you will recall that Dido and Aeneas go out into the country on a hunt.  "The forest" is next.  The audience for these signs appears to be Dido alone.  We have nymphs and naiads and satyrs.  When the sign says "The marriage of Dido" [you're not required to trust my translations], Aeneas is handed a bow and arrow which he waves around.  He shoots Dido's companion and Dido faints.  The arrow is theater, and the companion is fine.  We were wondering why they would give a mental patient a weapon.

Dido goes back to her room, and a ping pong table appears.  Two keepers in red vests then proceed to play ping pong and sing about triumphing over the Africans. These are Dido's advisers?  Oy.  They plot the marriage of Dido to Aeneas.  There has been nothing that even remotely resembles ballet.

This director seems to be under the impression that psychiatric treatment consists of arranging fantasy scenarios for the patients.  Problems arise because the patients react as though they were real.  This doesn't correspond to any therapeutic method I have heard of.  In a nuthouse apparently anything can happen.

When everyone else has left the stage, Dido and Aeneas sing a very gorgeous version of "Nuit d'ivresse," one of the most beautiful duets in all of opera.  The ending is kind of cool.

Astronaut La Boheme

Conductor: Gustavo Dudamel 
Production: Claus Guth 

Nicole Car | Mimì
Aida Garifullina | Musetta
Atalla Ayan | Rodolfo
Artur Ruciński | Marcello

Medici.tv is running the Puccini La Boheme from Paris that is set in outer space.  I wrote briefly about this, but other people said they loved it, so I'm giving it a second chance.

We begin in a space station with the astronauts wearing space suits without the helmets.  This is fun, but no matter what you normally do, if you do not read French, you must put on the subtitles, because there is added text which explains what you are seeing.  Dudamel is magnificent.

They are caught in a catastrophe and remember their loves from before they were astronauts.  I guess.  The singing is lovely, especially Mimi.  This is clearly Rodolfo's fantasy, and it is unbearably sentimental.  And beautiful.  Give yourself over to this fantasy.  Everyone dies.

Les Huguenots

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Conductor : Michele Mariotti et Łukasz Borowicz
Director:  Andreas Kreigenburg

Marguerite de Valois, catholic queen : Lisette Oropesa
Raoul de Nangis, protestant: Yosep Kang
Valentine: Ermonela Jaho
Urbain, Queen's page: Karine Deshayes
Marcel, Raoul's servant: Nicolas Testé
Le Comte de Saint-Bris : Paul Gay
La dame d’honneur : Julie Robard‑Gendre
Une bohémienne : Julie Robard‑Gendre
Cossé, un étudiant catholique : François Rougier 
Le Comte de Nevers : Florian Sempey 
Tavannes, premier moine : Cyrille Dubois
Méru, deuxième moine : Michal Partyka
Thoré, Maurevert : Patrick Bolleire
Retz, troisième moine : Tomislav Lavoie
Coryphée, une jeune fille catholique, une bohémienne : Élodie Hache
Bois-Rosé, valet : Philippe Do
Un archer du guet : Olivier Ayault
Quatre seigneurs : John Bernard - Cyrille Lovighi - Bernard Arrieta - Fabio Bellenghi

From Paris Opera Bastille I have found a film of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, 1836, which I wanted to watch live on Thursday.  The action takes place in 2063[?] according to a text on the screen.  The Catholic men wear clown-like ruffs around their necks while the protestants look a bit more like business men.

In Roberto Devereux we heard "God Save the Queen" in the overture.  In this opera the well known tune incorporated into the story is Luther's "Ein feste Burg."  This is to represent Protestantism.  Les Huguenots precedes Roberto Devereux.  We know that Meyerbeer was Wagner's patron and got him his start in composing operas, which might help to explain the presence of the Dresden Amen in Tannhäuser and Parsifal.  In spite of his rants against Meyerbeer, imitation is still the sincerest form of flattery.  Perhaps it serves to suggest an aura of religious feeling.  I digress.

I'm finding the production pretty hard going.  I have no background with this opera.  I am here to see Lisette Oropesa, and here at the mid point I must say she is magnificent.  The first scene is men and the second is women, with the queen's page going back and forth between them.  What is one to make of religious persecution in the future?  The set in Act II is very beautiful and includes a bit of nudity.

I am exploring this opera and am surprised to see a male chorus singing "Rata plan"  See also Donizetti's La fille du régiment, and Verdi's La Forza del Destino.  Again, this opera  appears to be the first.  I didn't realize how much borrowing went on.  There's a lot of choral work which I am finding unattractive.  Verdi bombast is somehow more fun.  Things going on in my soul are also interfering with my enjoyment of this opera.  I am tired of hatred and violence.

There is a line across Europe across the Alps dividing the descendants of  Roman culture and the descendants of Vikings, Germans, etc.  The former group remained catholic while all of the north, except maybe Poland, changed to protestant.  I have always felt that when Luther went to Rome, he was mostly experiencing culture shock.  However, in the Catholic countries were also pockets of Protestantism.  There were two results:  war and immigration to America.  My German friends would always ask why we had so many religions in America.  Because when you chased them out of Europe, they came to us.  Again I digress.

Yosep Kang has a very beautiful tenor voice but fluffs a high note later on.  As a lyric tenor he's wonderful.  As a dramatic tenor not so much.  Ermonela Jaho hasn't had much to sing in the first half but sings a lot in the later acts. Jaho is well known in Europe but has not really crossed my path that much.  All the big coloratura show pieces are for the queen while Valentine is a full lyric type with very little coloratura.    That seems to be the pattern with Meyerbeer.  All the coloratura arias are for a specific voice.  I admit to not being wild about any of these operas.

The greatest influences on Wagner seem to be Meyerbeer and Liszt, Meyerbeer for the heavy orchestration and dramatic style, Liszt for the invention of the tone poem which provides the through-composed concept applied to the full act of an opera.  I have to say I very much prefer mythology to politics for opera plots.  The only hit tune from this opera, other than the borrowed one, is the page's aria in act I.

Le Prophete from France

Conductor:  Claus Peter Flor
Director:  Alfonso Caiani

Jean de Leyde, tenor, John Osborn
Fidès, Jean's mother, mezzo-soprano, Kate Aldrich
Berthe, Jean's bride, soprano, Sofia Fomina
Jonas, an Anabaptist, tenor, Mikeldi Atxalandabase
Mathisen, an Anabaptist, bass or baritone, Thomas Dear
Zacharie, an Anabaptist, bass, Dimitry Ivashchenko
Oberthal, a feudal count, bass, Leonardo Estevez

Meyerbeer's Le Prophete (1849) came to me from Toulouse by way of Culture Box.  My only live experience of Meyerbeer was L'Africaine at the San Francisco Opera.  I begin to think Meyerbeer is neglected, perhaps not in France but certainly here.  Perhaps Yannick will change this.

Giocomo Mayerbeer was a truly international composer as very few are.  He was born in Berlin of rich Jewish parents, studied and composed extensively in Italy in the time of Rossini, and then established himself in Paris and Berlin. We know him primarily for his French operas.  However, Robert le Diable was written for Berlin.  It is hard to grasp that such a prominent composer is virtually unknown to me.  As would be expected, his works are orchestrated in the German style, emphasize chorus like a French opera and don't particularly follow the Italian ideal of bel canto.  I think I should delve further before making any decisions about him.  He is the main proponent of Grand Opera, a style that includes:

(a) obligatory spectacular scenes,
(b) death, not happy endings, in librettos by Scribe, (including this one),
(c) potpourri overture,
(d) extended ornate arias, though less ornate than bel canto,
(e) chorus and ballet, and
(f) a new heavier type of dramatic tenor as the featured hero.

Don Carlos from Paris

Conductor: Philippe Jordan
Regie:  Krzysztof Warlikowski

Jonas Kaufmann (Don Carlos)
Elina Garanča (Die Prinzessin Eboli)
Sonya Yoncheva (Élisabeth de Valois)
Ludovic Tézier (Rodrigue)
Dmitry Belosselskiy (Der Großinquisitor)
Ildar Abdrazakov (Philippe II)
Eve-Maud Hubeaux (Thibault)

The most recent operatic excitement on the international scene is the French version of Verdi's Don Carlos presented at the Opera Bastille with the above cited participants.  It claims to be the original French version of the opera, though there is no ballet.  Certain features of the production can be seen above.  Pictures are projected on a scrim in black and white that look like old silent movie films in very much deteriorated condition.  When Don Carlos loses Elisabeth, he points a gun at his head but does not shoot.  He does this again at the end.

The costumes suggest the Spanish Civil War.  My French is not good enough for this.  I would need English subtitles.

I am here for Elina Garanča as Eboli.  She is by far the most lively inhabiter of this role that I have seen.  She seems to have a clause in her contract that says she will smoke and kiss girls in every production.  Just kidding.  It makes you wonder if she actually smokes.  She is very sexy and flirtatious as Eboli.

In general the production explains nothing.  Elisabeth appears at a treeless Forest of Fontainebleau dressed in her bridal gown and prepared to wed.  When the groom changes from Carlos to Philippe, she immediately marries the new bridegroom, apparently by proxy since the man she appears to marry is not Philippe.  The scenes never look like anything they are supposed to be, but names of where we are appear on my screen for every scene.

Philip II of Spain was a real person who lived in the time of Elizabeth I of England and was in fact married to Elizabeth's sister Mary just before his marriage to Élisabeth de Valois.  Here he is shown at his coronation which would have occurred years before.  Oh well.  It replaces the martyrs burning at the stake which we do not miss.

The music is enjoyable and somehow less Italian.

There is a giant film of an ugly face and hands with a small naked body hanging out of it's mouth.  I don't know what this is for.  When Philippe sings that his wife does not love him, Eboli is with him.  She leaves when the Grand Inquisitor arrives.  She returns to do her big aria which is intense and beautiful.

Ludovic Tézier sings his death scene in the prison very beautifully and brings me to tears.  We don't see who has shot him.  Carlos gets out of his cell and does not return to it.  Philippe, the queen and Eboli enter after Posa has died.  When the crowd enters, Carlos escapes.  Eboli sings a few lines, kisses the king in front of everyone, including the queen and the grand inquisitor, and follows after Carlos.  The queen's presence suggests that perhaps she has assisted in Carlos's escape.

The ending is unspeakably awesome.  There are not words for something so beautiful.  The queen poisons herself.  It ends with the picture above.  The performance ends well, but it isn't just the singing.  The mysteriously romantic playing of the orchestra can also be credited.  This is the first I have liked Yoncheva.  Jonas was magnificent.

Don Giovanni from Aix

Conductor: Jérémie Rhorer
Production: Jean-François Sivadier

Don Giovanni: Philippe Sly
Leporello:  Nahuel di Pierro
Donna Anna: Eleonora Buratto
Don Ottavio: Pavol Breslik
Donna Elvira: Isabel Leonard
Zerlina: Julie Fuchs
Masetto: Krzysztof Baczyk
Il Commendatore:  David Leigh

What if Don Giovanni is a silly person and is just larking about?  And what if Leporello is the one who stabs the Commendatore, accidentally, of course? Is this the Don Giovanni I've been searching for?  This is the great Mozart opera from Aix-en-Provence.

There are period costumes, sort of, and props and makeup, but no sets to speak of. Leporello seems to be in on everything more than is usually the case.    Zerlina is sufficiently sexy.  Donna Elvira is a complete bitch.  DG jumps around a lot more than anyone would think possible for an opera singer.  Don Ottavio, a serious young man, comes to the party with a gun.  Viva la liberta.  This is like an orgy, but the girls look dubious.  Donna Elvira makes off with the gun.

Donna Anna, Don Giovanni, Donna Elvira

Toward the end of the intermission the Don comes out in more or less modern clothing and offers flowers to a woman in the front row.  He's scanning the audience for more candidates.  He waves.  The orchestra is back so he's looking them over.  He claps for the conductor.  Leporello is in modern clothing, too.

Elvira enters with a shorter skirt, followed by her servant carrying the gun.  The Don and Leporello exchange silly wigs.  They don't look much alike.  Leporello has tattoos, Don Giovanni doesn't.  This is completely satisfying my desire for a Don Giovanni in a comedy staging.  The best singing is from the women.

Masetto shows up in the audience with a gun which he waves around.  I see now that this is as close to a comedy as it can get.  Some of the characters, Ottavio, Anna, Elvira, are serious to the core.  We have here corrupt young men going wild.  Giovanni strips down to his underwear at the end.  There is some nudity.

I completely bought it.  Don Giovanni may now return to being a serious opera.
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Artaserse with 5 Countertenors

Artabano, Mandane, Arbace, Megabise, Artaserse, Semira.  I think.

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Conductor–Diego Fasolis
Director--Silviu Purcărete

Artaserse, Prince and then King of Persia; friend of Arbace, in love with Semira--Philippe Jeroussky
Mandane, Sister of Artaserse; in love with Arbace (en travesti)                   -- Max Emanuel Cencic
Artabano, Prefect of the Royal Guard; father of Arbace and Semira            -- Juan Sancho
Arbace, Brother of Semira; Friend of Artaserse; in love with Mandane        -- Franco Fagioli
Semira, Sister of Arbace; in love with Artaserse (en travesti)                       --Valer Barna Sabadus
Megabise, General of the Persian Army, confidant of Artabano; in love with Semira --Yuriy Mynenko

This is a film of the opera Artaserse by Leonardo Vinci on a libretto by Metastasio which was first performed in Rome in 1730.  It was the last opera for Vinci who died that year, and the first for Metastasio.  Vinci is one of the great Baroque Italian composers whose operas are only now being revived.  Women were not allowed on the stage in Rome, so all the characters were originally sung by castrati except Artabano who is a tenor and the villain.  This performance exists to remind us that opera is an Italian art form.

All the castrati are here countertenors and some of the most famous countertenors of our time.  These guys are amazing.  The opening pair are Cencic and Fagioli, both incredible, and the music is gorgeous.  The range of colors in our 5 countertenors is pretty fascinating.  It remains to be seen if the fascination will wear off before the opera ends.  So far 6 Rossini tenors pales in comparison.  They have been assembled in Nancy in the west of France.

At the start there is some breaking of the fourth wall in case you missed that these are all guys.  Some start out in their modern clothing, for instance.  Stagehands appear, and all of them are girls.  Hmmm. These are theatrical stagehands--when the real stagehands appear, they are all men.

There is an attempt here to present Baroque costumes, though they seem to suddenly appear and disappear.  Now that Artaserse is king he appears in an incredible white wig with horns and a white outfit.  Then Artabano appears in the same outfit.  Jeroussky has the most beautiful voice, but there is much to admire here.  The most spectacular is probably Fagioli, but they're all pretty amazing.

Plot.  There is an offstage murder of the present king, Artaserse's brother.  This makes Artaserse king and causes a lot of accusations.  Artabano is probably to blame.  He and Megabise plot to marry Semira to Megabise instead of Artaserse.  Since the male characters all wear the same white outfit, it's very hard to keep track of who is who.  Some visual help would have been good.  Artabano tries to poison Artaserse, but when it appears that Arbace will drink the poison, Artabano confesses.  It has a happy ending, as do almost all opera seria.

What it is actually about is singing, of course.  If you are at all curious to know what Baroque opera was really like, this is probably your best opportunity.  This is the Italian Baroque opera and not the French version which had no castrati.  These guys belt it out in a way that is surprising.  It is a unique experience, unlike anything I have seen in all my years of going to the opera.

Jaroussky removes his hats and wigs as soon as possible, giving the impression that he doesn't much care for dressing up.  The tenor is banished.  All six characters return for a song at the end.  One of the "girls" brings out the conductor.  The music is spectacular, not just the singing.  Find a way to add this to your experience of opera.

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Rigoletto from Orange

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Mikko Franck - conductor
Charles Roubaud - director

Nadine Sierra - Gilda
Leo Nucci - Rigoletto
Celso Albelo - Il Ducca di Mantova
Stefan Kocán - Sparafucile
Marie-Ange Todorovitch - Maddalena

Host - Natalie Dessay who calls Nadine "formidable."

By modern opera standards this production of Rigoletto from Orange is very traditional, as long as you are happy with generic modern clothing which I no longer find that I mind.  The set is simple to make it blend in with the natural setting provided by this extremely well preserved Roman theater which is complete with stage.  Rigoletto wears a gold jacket while all the other guys wear black.

Those of us who saw him in Onegin love Stefan Kocán.  His Sparafucile works as a waiter at the Duke's party.  In his first scene he holds his low note while he walks across the wide stage.

Leo Nucci is Placido's age and performs more like a character actor.  I prefer a sung Rigoletto like Quinn Kelsey, but Leo is theatrically quite viable and moving.

I'm here for Nadine Sierra who comes in around 24 minutes into the opera.  She is really quite glorious and also gorgeous.  She does her cadenza lying on the stage.  Later when the action returns to the Duke's palace, they take a bis.

I love Rigoletto, and enjoyed this one very much.  Opera is everywhere now.  This is now available on medici.tv.

Here is a quote from Le Monde:

Sa voix au timbre pur, incisif et délicat, irradie de tendresse dans le médium et se couvre d’or dans les aigus qu’elle laisse flotter aux limites de l’audible. Le fameux « Caro nome » à la fin de l’acte I, cette rêverie amoureuse qui parle de sensualité, démultiplie la ligne ornementale en une envolée de notes parfaitement justes et calibrées, une ligne d’une musicalité raffinée. Dans l’abandon aux pulsions amoureuses, Nadine Sierra dévoile l’infinie tendresse d’une nature angélique, dans le temps suspendu d’un cœur qui tutoie les étoiles.

[Her voice with a pure, incisive and delicate tone radiates tenderness in the medium and is covered with gold in the treble that it lets float to the limits of the audible. The famous "Caro nome" at the end of Act I, this amorous reverie which speaks of sensuality, multiplies the ornamental line in a flight of perfectly accurate and calibrated notes, a line of refined musicality. In the abandonment to the love impulses, Nadine Sierra reveals the infinite tenderness of an angelic nature, in the suspended time of a heart that knows the stars.--Google Translate]

Carmen from Aix-en-Provence

Carmen, José, Micaëla

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Conductor:  Pablo Heras-Casado
Production:  Dmitri Tcherniakov

Stéphanie d'Oustrac (Carmen)
Michael Fabiano (Don José)
Elsa Dreisig (Micaëla)
Michael Todd Simpson (Escamillo, toreador)
Gabrielle Philiponet (Frasquita)
Virginie Verrez (Mercédès)

Over undisclosed pathways I found my way to Bizet's Carmen from Aix-en-Provence.  I will try to explain it, but it may take a while.  My source shows only French subtitles.  Above is the end tableau.  Carmen was originally an opera comique with spoken French dialogue, and this is what we have here.  This allows our producers to change the dialogue to whatever pleases them, including adding characters not in the original libretto.  Last summer our Carmen included Lillas Pastia, the owner of Carmen's nighttime hangout, in a speaking role.

We appear to be in the lobby of a business in a room filled with large brown leather chairs.  An official appears periodically throughout the performance who does not sing and seems to be the head therapist in a radical experimental therapy group.  At first Fabiano (in a light blue suit and sun glasses) and Dreisig (in a pink coat) are an engaged couple who are here to seek help before marrying.  Legal disclaimers are signed.  Watch, wallet and phone are given to staff.  Fabiano puts on a name tag "José" and Dreisig leaves.  Clearly this is what I would call a concept staging.  I thought it worked.  If the characters are modern people, then it is easier to understand what is going on emotionally.

This is closer to the basis for Carmen than the stagings usually are.  Carmen needs a policeman to assist with certain aspects of her smuggling operation, and Don José is chosen.  So it's all a con.  Our staging is more theater than con, but the effect on José is similar.

Men enter bearing name tags that say "Soldat" and sit in the brown chairs.  The lady in the pink coat returns but everyone ignores her.  The soldiers first sing in their normal voices and then later they open their mouths and children's voices come out.  Hmmm.  They hold up smiley faces and José laughs.

Then suddenly the men bring out wine and girls enter smoking cigarettes.  Everyone drinks.  The atmosphere is very casual and relaxed, and I enjoyed this.

The entrance of Carmen is something to experience.  She bursts on the scene wearing pants and warning everyone not to fall in love with her.  She flirts with everyone but gives the flower to Don José.  I loved her madly and understood why José would fall for her.  She looks and sounds gorgeous and sings with great intensity and joy.  After choosing him, she leaves.

The woman with the pink coat returns, calls herself fiance, and puts on her "Micaëla" name tag.  This is the duet where she brings a kiss from mama.  Carmen returns and there is an extended scene where José tries to tie her up with his necktie.  The Seguidilla is sung from a chair.  The lights come back up, everyone leaves except José, and we have the end of Act I.

In Act II the plot thickens.  We are attempting to understand what about all this is its therapeutic purpose.  Projection?  Perhaps girlfriend is dissatisfied with his level of passion.

The girls with Carmen return.  The toreador comes out smoking a cigar and sings his big aria.  Carmen really likes him and goes off with him.  The men point guns at José long enough to upset him, and then smiley faces come out the barrels, making him laugh.

Carmen returns with castanets, argues with José and tells him to go back to his barracks.  Escamillo is her real interest while José is only pretend.  He responds by singing The Flower Song.  Beautifully.  This staging emphasizes the importance of Don José.  Michael Fabiano basically carries the opera.  Carmen responds by praising only liberty.  They fight and everyone else on the stage applauds.  For them this indicates success.  Shall we continue or not?  End of Act II.

In Act III José is still on the stage while the music plays.  Then the lights come up and the psychiatrist comes out along with the others.  The decision has been made to continue.  Carmen, Frasquita and Mercédès play the card game.  The two girls discuss their fortunes, but Carmen draws the death card.  José stares at them.  We're trying to decide if the therapy has gone wrong.  He has clearly lost his sense of what is real and what is not.  Something resembling a staff orgy ensues.  This would be a hell of a job.  José watches from above.

José fights with Escamillo.  Micaëla returns.  This whole act is very chaotic.

In Act IV something odd happens.  José is still there looking on, but a new client has arrived.  The music of Act IV plays while the scene is staged to resemble Act I.  The new guy's name tag even says José.  Except all the fizz has gone out of Carmen.  Our José stabs Carmen multiple times, but this is all fake since the knives are not real.  The opera ends with the staff on stage getting out the wine, the new José receives flowers which ours never did.  Carmen isn't dead and tries to comfort our José along with the returned woman in the pink coat.  This is sort of a WTF ending.

We are certain of only a few things:  that we love Stéphanie d'Oustrac and think Michael Fabiano is absolutely fabulous, especially for being able to establish so many different moods. The music was not destroyed by this regie production.  I like trying to figure out what is going on, but the ending didn't clarify anything.  It seems the therapy has backfired.

Cavalleria Rusticana in Paris

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Cavalleria Rusticana 

Conductor for both: Carlo Rizzi
Director for both: Mario Martone

Santuzza: Elīna Garanča
Turiddu: Yonghoon Lee
Lucia: Elena Zaremba
Alfio: Vitaliy Bilyy
Lola: Antoinette Dennefeld

Sancta Susanna 

Susanna: Anna Caterina Antonacci
Klementia: Renée Morloc
Alte Nonne: Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo

On November 28 we attended Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana paired with Sancta Susanna by Paul Hindemith at the Paris Opera.  This double bill was performed without intermission.  Curious, we said to ourselves.  Why would they do that?  And who ever heard of Sancta Susanna?  Well, it turns out that this opera premiered in 1922 in Frankfurt and was a terrific scandal.  I think the modern day European is much harder to scandalize.

The production for Cavalleria Rusticana reminded me of the Cavalleria Rusticana production at the Met. Just furniture and no set.  Normally the Easter mass is celebrated inside a church which appears in the set and Santuzza stands outside.  Here there is no set, so the mass is celebrated on the stage in our view.  My experience of the mass shows the crowd much more active than here.  People stand and sit, occasionally speak, and move to the front to receive the wafer, but here they only mime, of course.  The characters are in front.  I think it was staged this way to emphasize the importance of religious imagery in the story.  The large crucifix becomes a character.

Though I have written extensively about Elīna Garanča, this is my first live experience of her.  In this house her voice was large, full and very suitable for a wonderful Santuzza.  I withdraw all previous reservations about her transition to spinto mezzo.  The singing was spectacular, but the production very much muted the physical parts of her characterization.  Yonghoon Lee is improving.  He looks good and sounds dramatic.

After a brief pause, the curtain rose on the physical parts of the set.  Sancta Susanna was presented as a small chamber surrounded by a giant blank wall.  We had visited the death chamber of Vincent van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise the day before and thought Susanna's chamber very much resembled it.  Susanna is a nun dressed in white.  Other nuns appear dressed in black and white.

I was explaining to my son that this is expressionism, an art style that consists of realistic details without context.  Then I thought, "oh."  Thus the giant blank wall.  

We are told that Susanna is dying.  The window in her chamber is open, and she intensely enjoys the scents.  Sister Klementia begins a cautionary tale about a woman seen naked in the woods some 30 or 40 years ago.  A space below the chamber opens up, and we see a nude woman and a crucifix much like the one in the previous opera.  Susanna suddenly rips off her habit, revealing her I must say rather gorgeous breasts and declares herself to still be beautiful.  She runs out and throws herself onto the reclining crucifix.  There is much lamenting and confusion.  This is sort of a wtf opera.

Clearly only the beautiful Anna Caterina Antonacci could be expected to pull this off.  Her acting is superb here but the role is a bit contralto for her voice.  As you know, I do not read explanations of what this is supposed to mean before going, but it does seem to me the pairing of these two operas is intended as a religious commentary.  Santuzza tells us that she has been excommunicated but without explanation.

Symbols can be more powerful than reality, and clearly that is the intention here.  It was only partially successful.  It was oddly pleasing to hear Hindemith who is of course nothing like Mascagni but not in any way shocking to modern ears.

Eliogabalo

Conductor:  Leonardo García Alarcón
Production:  Thomas Jolly

Eliogabalo (Roman Emperor): Franco Fagioli (countertenor)
Alessandro Cesare (Eliogabalo's cousin): Paul Groves (tenor)
Flavia Gemmira (Alessandro's girlfriend): Nadine Sierra (soprano)
Giuliano Gordio (Flavia's brother): Valer Sabadus (countertenor)
Anicia Eritea (Giuliano's girlfriend): Elin Rombo (soprano)
Atilia Macrina: Mariana Flores (soprano)
Zotico: Matthew Newlin (tenor)
Lenia (old female servant): Emiliano Gonzalez Toro (tenor)
Nerbulone, Tiferne: Scott Conner (bass)

This performance from the Paris Opera of Eliogabalo by Cavalli in Italian with French subtitles is rather more cold than even I can tolerate.  I tried watching it without knowing anything, and this didn't work out for me.  For an excellent discussion of this production see The Idle Woman. It was composed for a Venetian carnival performance in 1668 which did not take place.  Many speculate why this would happen.  Cavalli was the most important Venetian opera composer but was coming to the end of his life.  It may also have been censors.  One writer suggests that it may have been too serious for carnival.  It's first performance was in 1999, then René Jacobs revived it in 2004, and it's played in several locations since.  A description of the plot can be found here.  View the stream here.

The music is clearly still in the style of the late operas of the great Monteverdi.  I am no longer "cold" in this aspect of the performance and enjoy it very much.

Act I

Campidoglio (the square on the capitol in Rome)
Emperor Eliogabalo has returned to Rome.  A rebellion by the Praetorian Guard has been put down.  The plot concerns itself primarily with his sexual interests.  He's no longer interested in Eretea and needs new women to harass.  There are frequent appearances of young men wearing only loin cloths, such as our Amor above.

I find the arias, especially by Nadine Sierra and Paul Groves, particularly beautiful.

Hall in the Senate
I've been in the Senate and there are no halls.  Women in tall hats are entering.  Eliogabalo has replaced the male Senate with an all female one.  Eliogabalo himself is dressed as a woman and sings their praises.  We can say already that this opera is about cross-dressing, mostly men dressing as women, such as Lenia who is a tenor.

The women cover their faces and are told to embrace one another.  The one who guesses who is touching them wins.  Atilia guesses and becomes a proconsul.  Flavia cannot guess when it is Eliogabalo and goes off embarrassed.

Act II

If you are tired of the impossible to stage da capo arias of Neapolitan opera, this may be just what you want.  This is from the era when the composers wrote their own recitative and regarded it as an important part of the work.  This opera is strangely relevant.  Who would have thought our own country would become something like this.

Nadine suddenly sings a very high note.  Fun.

The most shocking thing about this production is how not shocking it is.  Obviously Eliogabalo is a scandal.  How can such a dark and low key production express this scandal?

Eliogabalo prepares a banquet with two prominent pitchers.  Zotico and Lenia taint the pitchers--one is sleeping potion and the other poison.  Nerbulone drinks the sleeping potion.  Large black owls descend on the table, and the banquet is cancelled.  The owls dance.  Franco Fagioli is enjoying a peak in his career.  His countertenor is very robust.

Act III

I am a fan of Nadine Sierra and am happy to see her performance here.  Eliogabalo is the only character who gets interesting costumes.  He sticks his arms and feet into a bath and they come out covered in gold.  He gets in.  One of the people dressed in a loin cloth appears to be a girl.  He thinks about Flavia while everyone else thinks about killing him.  Eventually they succeed.

One would choose an opera about this particular Emperor for the debauchery, surely.  It was probably rejected for the seriousness.  I personally would have liked a less serious production.  The music is glorious but just a little long.

Circo Massimo
Everyone is at the games, but Eliogabalo does not arrive. Then it is reported that he is dead.  Flavia brings in his head and explains that the guards killed him when he broke into her room.  Alessandro becomes emperor, marries Flavia and everyone lives happily ever after.  This music is very beautiful, but I imagine the Venetians wanted more bang for their buck.

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno

Bellezza-Piacere-Disinganno-Tempo

Conductor:  Emmanuelle Haïm 
Production:  Krzysztof Warlikowski

Bellezza (beauty):  Sabine Devieilhe (soprano)
Piacere (pleasure):  Franco Fagioli (countertenor)
Disinganno (disillusion):  Sara Mingardo (mezzo-soprano)
Tempo (time):  Michael Spyres (tenor)

I have seen Handel's oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno staged before.  This time I watched it on medici.tv from Aix-en-Provence.  It is a youthful work written by 22 year old Handel while he was visiting in Rome.  At that time in Rome opera was forbidden and of course women singing in public was also forbidden.  All the high voices would have been sung by castrati.  The previous time I saw this it was mounted in Zurich as a vehicle for Cecilia Bartoli as Piacere, and even Anna Bonitatibus who replaced her was incredible.  It forms the core of Cecilia's album Opera Proibita.

It's a hard work to stage since it is just a philosophical discussion and has no plot.  The subtitles were in French.  Watching a philosophical discussion in languages you only partially understand is a problem.

Early on Disinganno says to Bellezza "La bellezza non ritorna piu."  I repeated this out loud several times. (Beauty never returns.)  For some people like Jennifer Lopez it never leaves, apparently.  Just remember that at 75 no one looks that great.  Sorry. If this work has a plot, it is putting Ballezza in her place.  Eventually you'll look ugly just like us.

Bellezza and her unnamed boyfriend attend a party where drugs are taken.  They are seen passing the drugs around by kissing.  Then suddenly first boyfriend and then Bellezza faint.  Both are taken to the hospital where boyfriend is declared dead.  He makes many more appearances, sometimes only in his underwear, without actually seeming alive.  Bellezza both does and doesn't recover.  Mostly her mascara runs, which is sort of ugly.  She is teased by pleasure and lectured by time and disillusion.

This staging worked pretty well but bogged down in the center.  In Zurich amusing things went on behind the main singers, and that happens to a certain extent here.  The biggest problem is that there is no Cecilia or even Anna Bonitatibus to keep us amused.

Minkowsky is wilder and more exciting than Emmanuelle Haïm.  Here's what I heard in Zurich.


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The Damnation of Faust from the Paris Opera

 Bryn, Dominique, Sophie, Jonas

Conductor Philippe Jordan
Director Alvis Hermanis

Marguerite: Sophie Koch (mezzo-soprano)
Faust: Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)
Méphistophélès: Bryn Terfel  (baritone)
Stephen Hawking (mute): Dominique Mercy

The basic premise of the Eurotrash movement seems to be that any music and set of words can be fitted to any set of pictures and movements.  Any actual relationship is unnecessary.  Faust is supposed to be a scholar, so we will make him a scientist working on the space program.  Why not?  This is at least a tenuous relationship.  This staging of La Damnation de Faust from the Paris Opera is more a comedy than a serious drama.  No one cares about souls any more.

Of the above characters the one who spends the most time on stage is Stephen Hawking.  For most of the opera he sits in his chair.  At the beginning he speaks in his mechanical voice.  He is immediately recognizable without use of a program.

Act I

The intention to establish a colony on Mars in 2025 is announced.  The colonists are announced.  In any opera there are people who look one of two different ways:  they are uniformly young and thin or they are representative of all mankind.  The former group is, of course, the ballet, and the latter is the chorus.  People identified as going to Mars are all from the ballet.  They remove parts of their dress and appear in various stages of dress and undress until the last scene.

Jonas Kaufmann as Faust appears, except for the addition of horn rimmed glasses, as himself throughout.  He doesn't suddenly become young, as is traditional with Faust.

Act II

Faust, Hawking and Méphistophélès appear.  Potential colonists are tested like lab rats.  Méphistophélès chloroforms Faust who falls on the floor and dreams of Marguerite.  We see films of the Mars rover, and a copy appears on stage.  An orientation confusion device is brought on stage and Faust refuses to go into it.  So they choose Hawking instead who while still in his chair, rotates in all directions for a while.

Then Hawking is back in his chair, nude (body stockings?) women dancers appear, Jonas and Sophie interact.

Act III

Marguerite sings.  Almost nude ballet couples become intimate.  Perhaps on Mars they will have to pair up.  Then duet with Faust and Marguerite.  Then a trio with Bryn.  The male dancers have abandoned the females who now look injured.

Act IV

This is the best part of the staging.  Marguerite is Hawking's nurse.  She sings the most famous aria so far.  There was much discussion in reviews of snails mating, but for us this is not seen and we have closeups of Sophie instead.  She takes off her lab coat and strokes Hawking's cheeks.  So you see the love she sings about is for Hawking.  She lays her cheek against his.  The Mars rover goes by.  And finally she kisses him.

Jonas comes out and sings "Nature immense" with an erupting volcano behind.  Very nice.

Bryn comes out with 3D goggles and tempts Faust into putting them on.  The colonists, including Marguerite, put on their space uniforms and we see a rocket blasting off.  Perhaps it's time to depart.

Faust finds Marguerite's dress in the pile of clothes and searches for her among the colonists.

Ending:  We are supposedly sending Marguerite off to heaven, but instead Hawking gets out of his chair and does an extended ballet.  Sort of.  Faust gets in the abandoned chair and drives it off the stage.

So is this The Salvation of Stephen Hawking instead of The Damnation of Faust?  The music was lovely.  We heard no booing.

From the Bastille Day Concert

I love to watch people rehearsing. For me this is better than the concert.  FYI: the picture on the back of her jacket is of herself as #73 in the top 99 from Ask Men.

Blogging

I have been trying to get into Twitter and tried my hand today while watching the stream of #ConcertDeParis honoring Bastille Day.  A number of foreigners sang in French:  Olga Peretyatko (Soprano) "Salut a la France",  Elīna Garanča (Mezzo) "Ah que j'aime les militaires",  and Lawrence Brownlee (Ténor) "Ah, mes amis".  The Twitter feed threw around a lot of criticisms of French diction.  With Google Translate at the ready I followed along.

So I thought I would ask all these native French speakers which foreigner they preferred in their language.  Jonas Kaufmann.  Unqualified agreement.  He was preferred over Sophie Koch who is French.

The French also complained about the use of Operetten Lieder as encores on Jonas's recitals.  Soon he will be doing whole concerts of these items.  I'm sort of looking forward.

It was a lovely concert which ended with La Marseillaise. 

La Vestale

This morning Gaspare Spontini's masterpiece La Vestale (1807) is streamed from Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, via medici.tv. Once long ago I read Berlioz' Evenings with the Orchestra--highly recommended, actually.  Monsieur Berlioz had a friend who played in the opera orchestra in Paris, and he allowed Berlioz to view the opera from this in front of the front row perspective.  The book is a memoir on this experience.  All the sources say this is fiction, but I didn't know that when I was reading it.  He wrote about his loves and hates at the opera, and my memory tells me that most beloved were the performances of La Vestale.  This is my first opportunity to view this opera.

Conductor:  Jérémie Rhorer
Stage director:   Eric Lacascade
Set designer:  Emmanuel Clolus
Costume designer:  Marguerite Bordat
Lighting designer:  Philippe Berthomé
Dramaturgy:  Daria Lippi

Julia:  Ermonela Jaho, soprano
Licinius:  Andrew Richards, tenor
La Grande Vestale:  Beatrice Uria Monzon, mezzo
Cinna:  Jean-François Borras, tenor
Le Souverain Pontife:  Konstantin Gorny, bass

Does it sound like anything?  The date is before Rossini and even before Fidelio.  The composer is Italian, but I hear more Gluck, a very formal and intense Gluck.  The expected Italian coloratura is missing.

I see there are 2 full length films of La Vestale on YouTube, one stars Denyce Graves and the other Leyla Gencer, but both are audio only.  In my mind it's Callas, and I see on Amazon that there is a CD version with Callas and Corelli.  I enjoy Beatrice Uria Monzon more than Ermonela Jaho. A mezzo could sing Julia.

I have gotten used to the modern minimalist stagings with only modern clothing and the least possible stage decoration.  People in suits without shirts are soldiers.  Women in slips with red hair are the vestal virgins.  Did I mention La Vestale translates to the Vestal Virgin?  When Lucinius goes off to war, Julia's father makes her become a vestal, while she is in love with Lucinius.  He is a Roman general and is making his triumphal return.  Julia is chosen to crown him--they arrange a date during the ceremony.  Minimalism takes a lot of the fun out of this.  In my brain they are parading through the forum to the rostrum, like Caesar in the movie Cleopatra.

She is assigned to guard the sacred flame.  Hanky-panky ensues and she lets the flame go out, a capital offense.  The goddess relights the flame, and there is a happy ending.

This opera was wildly popular for about 20 years, and then nothing. I think someone truly fabulous could bring it to life, but for me it's almost a Spieloper (a light opera popular in 1830-50).  Maybe you have to be French.

Pelléas et Mélisande

Medici.tv allows me to see from the stage of the Paris Opera Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. It is one of those AHA! moments.

Philippe Jordan, Conductor
Robert Wilson, Stage director and sets

Stéphane Degout, Pelléas
Vincent Le Texier, Golaud
Franz Josef Selig, Arkel 

Jérôme Varnier, Un Médecin, Le Berger 

Elena Tsallagova, Mélisande 

Anne Sofie Von Otter, Geneviève

I read that this is a revival, one that cannot be put aside.

It is a work like other operas because it is about love.  Perhaps it could be compared to Tristan und Isolde.  An older man marries a much younger woman and wrecks havoc when she falls in love with someone more her own age.  Perhaps it could also be compared to L'Amour de Loin for its focus on the individuals in a static landscape.

The subject is the inner reality of love rather than the outer reality of action.  The entire story takes place in a single extended location.  They go into the woods to hunt; they go inside the castle; they walk out to the fountain; Mélisande looks out the window of her tower bedroom; they go down into the dungeons of the castle.  It is like a Poe story--all atmosphere and emotion.  Whatever it is, it is it to the ultimate degree.

This is the ultimate extreme of the opera as tone poem.  There is a musical landscape like a forest enveloped in fog--no melodies, no leitmotivs can be extracted from the enormous soundscape.  There are no arias or vocal climaxes.  It seems to aspire only to existence.

For some this is the most boring opera ever written.  I found in my researches that Camille Saint-Saëns loathed Debussy and traveled to Paris to see the opera so he could ridicule it.

In this production the musical landscape is represented by a vision of the open sky; the sun is about to rise but remains hovering just below the horizon.  Sometimes it fades to almost black.  The color palate ranges only from blue to purple.

The characters do not move so much as pose, create pictures, silhouettes against the sky.

My sense is that once you have seen it this way, you will never manage to unsee it.  The opera has become this vision of it and will never separate back out again.

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Paris

My trip to Paris coincided with a complete change in my blood pressure medicine, which was close to being a disaster. I managed to drag myself home, but just barely. I almost stayed home but found a cheap hotel at the last minute in the Latin Quarter. This turned out to be the perfect place for me to stay with lots of handy restaurants and Metro stations. A number of the sights of Paris turned out to be nearby.

I went around mainly by Metro, armed with my Streetwise Paris map. Some of the Metro stations are huge and very confusing. To get to Garnier and Salle Pleyel involved taking RER B followed by RER A. The first time I tried his I wandered all over the Chatelet station looking for the other train and ended up on the platform where I had started. You walk across the platform. I got on the wrong train only once. It would be extremely helpful if the trains were identified by the next stop instead of the final station, but that is probably an out-of-towner perspective. It would be handy to know if the train were taking me to Chatelet or Luxembourg instead of to the long list of end stations.

Giulio Cesare ended after the last Metro and threw me on to the mercy of the Paris night buses. In the daytime the buses are filled with well behaved old ladies such as myself, but the night buses seem to be reserved for the sort of people who get into shouting matches with the driver. And they didn’t seem to go anywhere near my hotel. Luckily when the bus put me down near the flower market on Ile de la Cite, I had already been in Paris long enough to recognize the flower market and the path home. The lights had been turned off on Notre Dame. Everything looked quite forlorn at that hour of the night. One bar on Rue Saint Jacques was still open and going strong, but everything else was dark and quiet by 2 am.

I appeared to blend in. I noticed that older women seem to wear their hair very short in Paris which may account for why people would constantly approach me and start speaking French. When I tried to speak French, about half the words turned out to be Italian.

I was interested in the contrast with Rome. In Rome the wreckage was caused by invading armies who destroyed everything indiscriminately. In Paris the lower classes did their best to wreck anything that seemed to symbolize the aristocracy. In the Cluny Museum are the heads of the kings of Israel that were knocked off by the angry mobs of the revolution who thought they were kings of France.

At the ballet the young man who gave me a ticket and I discussed Paris traffic. I held that it was not nearly as bad as I remembered it from the early seventies. I remember being afraid that they were going to come up on the sidewalk after me. He pointed out that now there are cameras all over Paris filming you, much as I know is the case in London, so it is much more difficult to get away with things than before.

I was hobbling feebly across a street in the Place de la Concorde after visiting the Orangerie when a small van seemed on a trajectory to run right over me. I suddenly became spry and jumped out of his way.

Clearly this trip was meant to be for the miraculous encounter with Cecilia in the auditorium of Salle Pleyel. Two thirds of the way down the left aisle, I calculate. She looked especially beautiful in her black suit, and did not seem to mind this time that I never do or say the right things. Thank you. I think I squeezed back, or at least I hope so.

I returned home with memories and a lot of dark, gloomy pictures. Maybe Paris in the spring would be different.