The opera composer Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) was 29 years younger than Händel and 42 years older than Mozart — although Mozart narrowed the age gap somewhat by starting to compose operas at age 11. Gluck tried out many different styles during his forty-year composing career, but today he is best Read More …
The Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper) is one of the world’s busiest opera houses, with 350 performances per year. When I was there, in the last week of October 2016, they put on five performances of three different operas. I went to all three of these. There were two evenings Read More …
In terms of the number of seats that they can actually put on sale for any given evening, around 1,750, this is only the third largest opera house in Paris (assuming you still count the Châtelet as an opera house). But when you consider the amount of high-quality space that Read More …
Most of you are too young to remember this, but back in the twentieth century it was customary for department stores to consist of — departments. If you were looking for, say, men’s trousers, all you had to do was take a deep breath, enter the store, find your way Read More …
My original intention was to ride around Paris on the Vélib’ bikes during the day and just come out to Versailles for the evening performance at the Royal Opera, but it turned out to be such a rainy day that all my Paris plans ‘fell into the water’, as the Read More …
In case you are wondering why there is a car with its back end jacked up in front of the opera house in this photo, rest assured that nobody is lying under the car trying to fix it. The car is in fact on display because its manufacturer is one Read More …