Barfüsserplatz is a central square in Basel, named after the Barfüsser order of monks. The German word barfuß (or barfuss, as the Swiss spell it) means barefoot, and the barefoot monks were called that because at first they weren’t allowed to wear shoes, only sandals. This must have been when Read More …
Up to now I have seen opera performances in four Swiss cities — Zürich, Bern, Geneva and Lausanne — but never in Basel, even though their opera company has an excellent reputation and I know several people who have sung or conducted there. I suppose the reason is that Basel Read More …
The Semper Opera House is named after Gottfried Semper (1803-1879), the architect who designed it once and built it twice. His original opera house was completed in 1841. The composer Richard Wagner was musical director of the Dresden Opera at the time, and three of his operas had their world Read More …
The amazing thing about my visit to Paris in June 2006 was that in ten days I saw eight operas at seven different venues. As I wrote at the time, “I don’t know of any other city in the world where this would be possible.” The operas I saw on 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 …
The Place du Châtelet on the right bank of the Seine is unique in that it is flanked by two large and (from a distance) identical-looking theaters, both of which belong to the city of Paris. The one on the left is the Théâtre du Châtelet, which in 2006 was Read More …
This theater is not on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, as I used to think, but is several blocks from there on Avenue Montaigne near the Place de l’Alma on the right bank of the Seine. This is a very wealthy district of Paris, in fact for apartment buyers Avenue Montaigne Read More …
In 1875 Bizet’s Carmen had its world premiere here at the Opéra-Comique. Also Debussy’s Pelleas et Mélisande and Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann had their world premieres here, so this is a hall that is full of great opera history. The performance I saw here in 2006 was of The Barber Read More …
This historic theater, the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet, was built in the 1890s and has been a subsidized public theater since 1982. It has a small orchestra pit for musical productions, and is also used for spoken drama and concerts. La Carmencita, which I saw there in 2006, is an adapted Read More …
It only rained once during the ten days I was in Paris in June 2006, and that was — you guessed it — ten minutes before show time at an open-air opera performance in the Senate Gardens, which are in the Luxembourg Gardens right behind Luxembourg Palace. A nice announcer Read More …