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Leonardo García-Alarcón's exhumation of Bembo's work proves a winner, in a hyper-quirky staging by Netia Jones with Julie Fuchs as the pick of the fine singers.

Excellent vocal acting from Thomas Hampson, Renée Fleming, Xiaomeng Zhang and a magnificent orchestral performance conducted by Kent Nagano can't make Valentina Carrasco's production fully grip.

The French premiere of the British composer's opera will be the undisputed high point of the Grande Boutique's season: a perfect confluence of music, staging and cast.

In the expert hands of both director Warlikowski and conductor Kent Nagano, the sequel to Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti proves to be even darker and more dramatic.

Barrie Kosky's makes a limited impact in his debut at Opéra de Paris, apart from an hallucinogenic Polovtsian Dances.

The new production of Les Indes galantes at Opéra Bastille is exceptional, from the vocal cast to the choreography by Bintou Dembélé. But the stand-out performance of the evening comes from conductor Leonardo Garcia Alarcón.

Don Giovanni returns to the Palais Garnier. The production by Ivo van Hove lacks energy but is wonderfully served by a cast of great young talents.

Tcherniakov reduces Berlioz' epic to little more than Circle Time therapy, a poor way to mark the composer's anniversary year.

In Bérénice, given its world première at the Opéra Garnier, composer Michael Jarrell revisits Racine's refined tragedy with the help of the inspired voices of Barbara Hannigan and Bo Skovhus.

It's a big night at the Opéra Bastille for their 350th anniversary season; Oropesa's dazzling coloratura stops the show; Andreas Kriegenburg sets the action interestingly in a Star Trek future.

Claus Guth's production of Handel's last oratorio lands in Paris, where William Christie leads Les Arts Florissants and a stellar cast. 

Marble and solitude: Willy Decker's view of La clemenza di Tito is revived with a strong cast at L'Opéra de Paris.

Krzysztof Warlikowski’s new Paris staging of Verdi's epic Don Carlos is cold and glassy, but the vocal performances at the Bastille more than compensate.

In April, Peter Mattei and Anna Netrebko were starring together in Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera. Less than a month later and they are reunited in Paris in Willy Decker's staging.

This Paris production of The Snow Maiden proves that director Dmitri Tcherniakov is today's greatest champion of Rimsky-Korsakov's operas. 

The Royal College of Music, Paris Opera Academy and Versailles Baroque Music Centre take on the ambitious task of bringing Rameau opéra-ballet to a London audience.

A compelling staging of Gluck's 1779 opera in Paris. 

Under Philippe Jordan's baton, the Orchestre de l'Opéra National de Paris performs Der Rosenkavalier  - an unrivalled pleasure. 

In Paris, Russian enfant terrible reunites Iolanta with The Nutcracker... with wildly mixed results. 

Despite the sombre staging, it’s the vocal fire that blazes in this impressive Trovatore in Paris.

A daring, fascinating pairing of two modern operas by Krzysztof Warlikowski in Paris. 

One has to admit that the 2015 vintage of this operatic Grand Cru, with us since 1999, is a particularly fine one. To be consumed with immoderation!

With outstanding performances from Roberto Alagna and Paul Gay, Pierre Corneille's elegant poetry shines through the return of Massenet's Le Cid to the Opéra de Paris, more than a century after it was last seen there.

Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande is on the bill at the Paris Opera. How to control one's enthusiasm for a work that is so delicate and so evocative, served up by such highly devoted artists?

Zabou Breitman brings silver screen glamour to Paris Opera's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, with the show stolen by Anna Prohaska's Blonde.

Under the artistic and musical direction of Olivier Py and Philippe Jordan, Verdi’s opera has ignited a veritable storm of both fervent criticism and ardent defence.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” These wise words have fortunately not fallen on deaf ears at the Opéra de Paris, who have brought back their production of Leoš Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski and designed by Małgorzata Szczęśniak, first presented in Paris back in 2007.

Of the seventeen operas Handel wrote to star the Italian castrato Senesino, Giulio Cesare in Egitto is the most popular, and the one performed most often. It is a dramma per musica filled with ironic hints, and based on power and sex intrigues in ancient Rome. The 38-year-old Handel wrote it in England when his imported Italian-style operas started to fall out of favour.

For those who view Wagner’s Ring Cycle in symphonic terms, Siegfried is often described as the third movement Scherzo: an episode of comedy in between the existential musings of Die Walküre and the action-packed, apocalyptic Götterdämerung. Last night’s performance at the Opéra Bastille in Paris gave us plenty of high comedy and much more besides.

The packed hall at the Opéra de Bastille was in for a particularly interesting evening as they arrived for the Opéra National de Paris’ newest production of Bizet’s Carmen. This is an important event that brings out both the regular opera-goers and Carmen lovers, and those curious enough to buy a ticket to see the company’s latest creation.

Puccini’s Tosca is no stranger to the stages of Paris. With almost 300 performances of this opera to date at the Opéra National de Paris, Tosca has become, alongside Mozart’s Le Nozze de Figaro and Bizet’s Carmen, a staple of Paris’ opera houses.However, such popularity opens up challenges.

From time to time, audiences are presented with what I consider to be a rare event, a “dream” performer: one so convincing in his or her role that they become an ideal, establishing a standard to which all following interpretations will inevitably be compared – for example, Jacqueline du Pré’s interpretation of Elgar’s Cello Concerto has become a timeless benchmark.

​In each case, you know the murder is coming. In each case the music is explosive and closes the opera: there is nothing left to say except Canio's simple words: "La commedia è finita.

Otello, Verdi’s penultimate opera, is a tightly-wound setting of Shakespeare’s familiar tragedy. From the opening storm to the title character dying upon a kiss, it is more fragmentary and emotionally cool than his earlier work, an opera that tends to be more admired than loved.

Puccini's Il Trittico, performed last night at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, is a unique item in the repertoire: a series of three one act operas with little to link them except the composer's conceit of what would work together in an evening. Each opera clocks in at something under an hour, and despite the relatively short duration, each has plenty of time to develop its characters.

Donné pour la première fois à l'Opéra national de Paris, l'ouvrage du compositeur américain est un succès sur le plan musical, théâtral et chorégraphique.

Très attendue, cette nouvelle production – première incursion de l'acteur britannique dans l'opéra – brille surtout par sa beauté et son respect du texte de Tchaïkovski, moins par sa direction d'acteur et sa distribution inégale.

Si la mise en scène de Calixto Bieito comporte une bonne dose d'éléments déconcertants, elle ne manque toutefois pas d'intérêt et peut compter sur des interprètes investis, au premier rang desquels le Heldentenor autrichien.

Dans la lignée d'un Or du Rhin qui avait suscité critiques et incompréhensions, le deuxième volet de la Tétralogie déçoit grandement, malgré un excellent Stanislas de Barbeyrac dans le rôle de Siegmund.

L'opéra de Verdi en est à sa troisième nouvelle production en douze ans dans la Grande Boutique, pour un succès – une fois encore – avant tout musical…

Ce trittico fera date, grâce à un travail d’équipe exceptionnel d’où se distinguent notamment Christof Loy, Carlo Rizzi et l’incroyable Asmik Grigorian dans les trois rôles féminins de l’ouvrage.

Deuxième reprise de cette production signée Krzysztof Warlikowski, qui se distingue par une distribution d’une belle homogénéité et la direction raffinée de Simone Young.

Dans son dernier opéra, le compositeur s'aventure vers la contemplation, tandis que le metteur en scène n'hésite pas à aller à l'encontre de la partition...

Le metteur en scène fait résonner le sens universel et multiple de l'œuvre de Debussy, dans une production excellente sur tous les plans, de la direction musicale (Antonello Manacorda) à la distribution.

La reprise de cette production de 2013 laisse une impression mitigée ; si la mise en scène reste sobrement efficace, le plateau vocal ne convainc pas totalement.

Très attendue depuis son annulation pour cause de Covid-19, la Tétralogie selon Calixto Bieito déçoit grandement pour son premier épisode, et ni la fosse ni la distribution vocale ne compensent cet échec.

Le chef gréco-russe et le metteur en scène américain se rejoignent dans une vision généreuse et universaliste de l'opéra de Rameau, servie par une distribution impeccable.

On ne boude pas son bonheur devant la reprise de la production d'André Engel qui, en 2008, avait fait l'unanimité. La distribution et l'orchestre sont au diapason pour cette belle réussite.

Si la mise en scène ne convainc toujours pas dans cette production créée en 2016, la direction musicale et le rôle-titre sont autant d'atouts qui magnifient le chef-d'œuvre de Verdi.

La production de 2008 donne lieu à une belle reprise sous la direction impeccable de Susanna Mälkki, avec une distribution dominée par Ben Bliss dans le rôle de Tom Rakewell.