Corentin Leconte

Supposedly dead that very morning in the pool from a "broken heart" while swimming the butterfly stroke, a strangely rejuvenated mother visits her daughter. In another time, further south, a village priest believes he sees a wall of his church shedding tears that form a face... Miracles? It's a matter of perspective, and even of hearing, suggests director Samuel Achache cheerfully. Certainly, a birth and a romantic encounter, two events that will also be discussed here, can be described as miraculous. But what about when a phenomenon that defies the laws of nature actually occurs?

After marrying the emperor of the south-eastern islands, the daughter of the king of the spirits lost her magical powers without acquiring the shadow that would seal her place in the human world. Under the baton of Klaus Mäkelä, Barrie Kosky transforms Strauss’s most ambitious opera into an allegory of the awakening of consciousness.

Beneath the gilded ceilings of the Palais Garnier, Gustavo Dudamel takes us on a colorful journey between Spain and South America, performed by the Orchestra and singers of the Paris Opera Academy. The program includes works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Leonard Bernstein, Astor Piazzolla, Enrique Granados, Kurt Weill, and others.

Accompanied by a child, the mathematician Galileo observes the firmament with a telescope. Ten years ago, the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned in Rome for having supported the idea of an infinite and centerless universe, based on the work of Copernicus. By dint of observations and calculations, Galileo seeks proofs for his hypothesis of a cosmic system where the Earth is "an ordinary celestial body, one among thousands". From Padua to Venice, the mathematician shakes certainties by confronting the power of a Church which wishes to maintain its absolute power in the "crystal spheres" where Ptolemy has hitherto locked up the world.

When, in 1733, Voltaire, the most brilliant mind of his day, collaborates with Rameau, its greatest composer, in undertaking an ambitious reform of operatic practice, the result is the biblical opera Samson. But the libretto is condemned and the score lost – possibly reworked here and there in later compositions. Claus Guth and Raphaël Pichon, haunted by this interesting project that had turned into one of the most intriguing failures in operatic history, have tried, not to recreate the letter, but to revive the spirit: to marry a strong, noble libretto with the most eloquent music.

Goethe's masterpiece set to music by Jules Massenet can be rediscovered on stage at the Opéra Comique, conducted by Raphaël Pichon and directed by Ted Huffman.

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Molière’s birth on 15 January 2022, Ivo van Hove reunited with the Troupe for their third collaboration, a production of Le Tartuffe ou l’Hypocrite, the original version in three acts, banned at its premiere in 1664 and reconstructed thanks to the work of ‘theatrical genetics’ overseen by Georges Forestier and Isabelle Grellet.

A stand-up comedy special about death by Belgian comedian Alex Vizorek.

Neither a fiction nor a documentary, it is a film-dance. Not a narrative, but a journey through the Villeneuve area of Grenoble. No characters, but energies, encounters. The body of a dancer in the city. An essay of re-enchantment.

In March 2024, to mark the 300th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion, premiered in Leipzig in 1724, Berlin-born Sasha Waltz presented a movingly intense choreographed version on the stage of the Opéra de Dijon.

The audience is invited into Violetta’s privacy to have a close look at the fire to which she abandons herself among the guests of this musical and phantasmagorical celebration that blends theatre and opera, voices that speak and sing, and where the distinction between the instrumentalists and the singers becomes blurred, where Charles Baudelaire is seated next to Christophe Tarkos, and where the phantoms of this Paris in full industrial boom whose future we are living at present, sing and die.

An adaptation from Peter and the wolf music by Sergei Prokofiev presenting the tales of a young boy and a wolf caracterized by instruments.

The evocative music of Claude Debussy has been described as the foundation of modern music. But how did the composer come to develop his unique style? On this video, maestro Francois-Xavier Roth and the London Symphony Orchestra present the UK premiere of a previously lost work by the young Debussy, alongside some of his earliest inspirations. Debussy's newly discovered Premiére Suite gives a rare insight into the mind of a young composer on the cusp of innovation. It's a work filled with Romantic and Eastern influences and glimpses of the unexpected harmonies that came to define Debussy's work. Paired alongside the composer's role models - from Wagner's powerful intertwining motifs, the abundant Spanish influences in Lalo's rarely-heard Cello Concerto performed here by Edgar Moreau, and Massenet's majestic Le Cid - Francois-Xavier Roth gives a fresh perspective on the much-loved composer.

Survivor of a shipwreck, Viola arrives in Illyria and disguises herself as a man to protect herself.

A staging of Richard Strauss' opera "Ariadne auf Naxos" by Katie Mitchell. Recorded at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

Today, immense confusion reigns over the quest for the absolute, revolt and fury, violence and its appendages. And many people plunge back in Albert Camus' work to find answers. In the foreword to his play, the philosopher and writer summarizes the intrigue as follows: "In February 1905, in Moscow, a group of terrorists, belonging to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, organized a bomb attack against the Grand Duke Serge, Tsar's uncle ”. The rapper and slammer Abd Al Malik offers with this "musical tragedy" a contemporary staging of "The Just", a complete creation, faithful to the text of Camus, but reinventing a scenic and musical language resolutely inscribed in our time.

Two men and a woman live together under the roof, but isolated, each in his own world, in three maid's rooms, with shared toilets and related sounds.

This contemporary Opera, exclusively female from its conception to its performers, tells the story of four women caught between romantic turmoil and social dictates. A successful artistic endeavor.

The Verbier Festival is one of the classical music's greatest events. In celebration of the festival's 25yr anniversary, this unique concert brings together 36 classical stars in an unprecedented evening of ingenious programming and captivating performances. The line-up includes some of the world's greatest violinists, violists, cellists and pianists as well as other leading performers conducted by Valery Gergiev and Gábor Takács-Nagy.