Exploring Passy
Since it was the middle of February I was prepared for snow, slush, sleet, gale-force winds and freezing temperatures, but in fact it was dry and frost-free the entire time, Read More …
Tag: Rossini
Ricordi and the Fantastic Five
The one thing I really messed up on my visit to Milan in 2008 was that I didn’t see the exhibition Ricordi e i Fantastici 5 — and why not? Read More …
Au Printemps in Paris
The two department stores Au Printemps and the Galeries Lafayette are both on the same street, Boulevard Haussmann. They are both in large historic buildings with Art Deco cupolas. And Read More …
Operas in Stuttgart
The State Opera in Stuttgart has a great reputation for high quality, innovative opera productions. I have seen quite a few operas in Stuttgart, including L’italiana in Algeri (The Italian Read More …
Crash of an Airbus at the Opera
Instead of being shipwrecked, captured by pirates and sold into slavery, the Italian travelers in David Hermann’s staging of Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri were flying comfortably in an Airbus when it Read More …
State Theater on Gärtnerplatz
Besides the Bavarian State Opera, Munich also has a second full-scale opera house called the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz. They do all their operas in German (or Bavarian!), not in the Read More …
The Aalto Theater in Essen
In 1958 the city of Essen conducted an architects’ competition to design a modern new opera house. The winner was the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). Of course just winning Read More …
Musée Charles X in the Louvre
Charles the 10th reigned as King of France from 1824 to 1830. To celebrate his coronation at the Reims Cathedral, he commissioned the great Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) to Read More …
Louis XIV and his Versailles Palace
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 Read More …
Operas in Bern
In the first decade of the twentieth century numerous small and middle-sized European cities built impressive municipal theaters, and Bern was no exception. To finance this one, a group of Read More …