Orphée aux enfers

Live performance at the Théâtre du Châtelet in December 2004. Marc Minkowski conducting Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble. Stage direction by Laurent Pelly.

In January 2007, superstar soprano Natalie Dessay, joined on stage by acclaimed tenor Juan Diego Florez dazzled British audiences in Laurent Pelly's new production of Donizetti's "LA FILLE DU REGIMENT". The perfectly staged & cast production became the operatic event of the year, receiving rave press reviews & rapturous audience ovations.

The prologue sets the stage for the action: Thespis, Momus and Thalie announce the subject of the play. It is a comedy mocking the folly of man...and the story of a trap set by Jupiter to cure Juno of her jealousy. The trap? It consists in convincing the water nymph Platée that Jupiter is in love with her. Mercury officially declares Jupiter’s love to Platée. When the god appears before her – first as a donkey, then an owl - the nymph calls on the birds of the marshes, but they scare Jupiter away. Luckily he quickly returns and declares his love for Platée. He even wants to marry her. La Folie comes to sing for the fiancée during an absolutely chaotic scene. However, as the couple prepares for the wedding, Juno arrives. Furious, she puts an end to the farce and ascends to the heavens with Jupiter. Humiliated, Platée understands she has been duped. She swims off into the marshes, as the chorus sings an ironic song in her honour.

This is a joy from beginning to end. Although there are many tricks and ideas from Laurent Pelly, as always he seems to still retain the Offenbach magic. La Lott and Monsieur Beuron are a joy, but so is everyone else. The Patriotic Trio by the sea is both a hoot and wonderfully sung, the score seems truly complete yet never flags and the finale sequences for especially acts 1 & 2 are a joy of movement and sound fused as one glorious Offenbachian moment.

A village somewhere in the Italian countryside, a wayside inn on a road crossed by the occasional dog. Nothing more. Laurent Pelly’s production presents a deserted landscape in which the turbulent arrival of Doctor Dulcamara causes a sensation. And with good reason! He is said to be the inventor of a mysterious love potion… In opera, love philtres often provoke terrible tragedies. They also provide the pretext for this gentle comedy in which Sergeant Belcore and the timid Nemorino vie with each other for beautiful Adina’s heart. The stage is set! Bring on the music, which, if we are to believe Donizetti, was composed in a fortnight!

Massenet composed his opera about Cenerentola nearly 80 years after Rossini did his. And if you are looking for the outburst of the non-stop hilarity and the musical jokes of Rossini, you won't find it here. Also, while the Cendrillon was highly successful and popular in its time, it does not reach up to the artistic and musical levels offered by Massenet's other operas, like Manon, or Thais or Werther. Nevertheless, this is a delightful opera and it is well presented by The Royal Opera. Laurent Pelly created a ingenious setting with movable walls which are covered [in French] with the story of Cinderella, and which open and close book-like.

The 2017–18 Live in HD season concluded with an enchanted performance of Cendrillon, Massenet’s glittering operatic adaptation of the Cinderella story. This charming staging by Laurent Pelly, which bursts to life with the director’s characteristic wit and whimsy, stars American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as the title outcast-turned-princess. Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote offers a touching portrayal of the pants role Prince Charming, while soprano Kathleen Kim shines as the Fairy Godmother. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, as the outlandish Madame de la Haltière, and bass-baritone Laurent Naouri, as the haggard Pandolfe, round out the principal cast. On the podium, conductor Bertrand de Billy leads a performance that is equal parts madcap comedy and heartfelt romance.

Midsummer's eve in Nuremberg and the real-life cobbler-poet Hans Sachs and the guild of mastersingers are pursuing their craft of poetry and music according to traditions and rules. A goldsmith's daughter, Eva, and a knight, Walther von Stolzing, fall in love, but Eva's father has promised her to the winner in the forthcoming song contest. Under the wise tuition of Sachs, can Walther learn the mastersinger's art in time to win Eva’s hand and see off a challenge from the foolish town clerk Beckmesser?

Spiced with Italian buffa, L’Heure espagnole transports us to Torquemada’s clock shop, the scene of his wife Concepcion’s infidelities.

Tenor Javier Camarena and soprano Pretty Yende team up for a feast of bel canto vocal fireworks—including the show-stopping tenor aria “Ah! Mes amis,” with its nine high Cs. Alessandro Corbelli and Maurizio Muraro trade off as the comic Sergeant Sulpice, with mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as the outlandish Marquise of Berkenfield. Enrique Mazzola conducts.

As bright and colorful as penny candy, this visually arresting production of Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel und Gretel" puts a twist on the classic fairy tale upon which it's based by uprooting the action to modern times. Director Laurent Pelly's interpretation, which premiered at Glyndebourne in 2008, finds Hansel, Gretel and their family taking shelter in a cardboard box while the witch's stock of goodies lines the shelves of a supermarket.

Star soprano Anna Netrebko scored a triumph in Laurent Pelly’s acclaimed 2012 production, singing the title heroine for the first time at the Met. Manon’s story—from innocent country girl to celebrated courtesan to destitute prisoner—is one of the great tragic tales in literature and music, and this performance brings out all of its colors, as seen through Massenet’s masterful score, from the comedic beginning to the heart-wrenching finale. Piotr Bezcala is des Grieux, Manon’s lover, who decides to become a priest when she leaves him, but ultimately is reunited with her, only to lose her again. Paulo Szot sings Lescaut, and Fabio Luisi conducts the Met Orchestra and Chorus.

The most brilliant of Austrian operettas takes us to the outskirts of romantic Old Vienna. It’s New Year Eve and we are in the company of Caroline, who is determined to teach her philandering husband Gaillardin a lesson, even while she is being pursued by her former beau, the operatic tenor Alfred. At the centre of the action is the extremely wealthy, eternally bored Prince Orlofsky, whose lavish masked ball brings everything to a most delicious boil. But what if the whole plot has been a cunning plan masterminded by someone just to get back at Eisenstein?

Pelleas et Melisande The story takes place in the imaginary kingdom of Allemonde, governed by the aged King Arkel.

L’Étoile did much to establish Chabrier as a major force on the Parisian stage and his contemporary Henri Duparc praised him specifically for creating a French comic genre, both funny and musical – described as something of a French Die Meistersinger. The fanciful story is set in an imaginary kingdom and all, naturally, ends well. However, despite the slight plot line L’Étoile is something of a pivotal work, a unique example of French 19th-century light opera, orchestrated with great sophistication and flooded with gossamer wit.