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 …
From the outside, the City Theater in Bremerhaven looks rather cramped and austere, but inside it is pleasant, with wood paneling on the walls both in the lobby and in the auditorium. The theater was first built from 1909 to 1911, at a time when new municipal theaters were being Read More …
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 crash-landed in the jungle in some remote part of the world. The wrecked plane was apparently found by some sort Read More …
This large cemetery in the 20th arrondissement of Paris is popular with tourists because some famous people are buried here. If you go in at the main entrance you can get a map to help you find the graves of people like Gioacchino Rossini, Maria Callas, Édith Piaf, Jim Morrison Read More …
One of the mysteries of operatic history is why the composer Gioacchino Rossini (1792 – 1868) abruptly stopped composing in 1829 at the age of 37, when he was at the height of his powers and had just had a huge success with his opera Wilhelm Tell. Since he was Read More …
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? Because I didn’t notice the little sticker saying it had been extended, so I thought it was all over before Read More …
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, and on my last day we had brilliant sunshine and temperature readings from 17° C. at noon up to 20° Read More …
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 Girl in Algeria) by Gioacchino Rossini, The Coronation of Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi, Die Walküre by Richard Wagner and Doktor Read More …
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 original languages, and also put on the occasional operetta or musical. Gärtnerplatz is one of the few opera houses which Read More …
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 they both sell the same fashionable products with prestigious brand names that everybody except me has heard of. It turns Read More …