The rain was drizzling on Maison de Sylvie in Chantilly but the atmosphere was electrical when Mathieu Deldicque, director of Musée Condé, and Marie Pierre Dion in charge of the rare books, announced that the “Mona Lisa of Manuscripts” Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, would be (partly) exhibited for three months in June-October 2025. The last time … Read More
And more to look forward to in music and paintings.
The “rentrée” in Paris is always super exciting with all the new books being published for the prizes, the new season at Opéra de Paris and Théâtre des Champs Elysées but also at Athénée and the openings in galleries. I will start with an extraordinary and promising show at Louvre Lens (90 mns north of Paris by train), which features … Read More
In Aix en Provence, museums compete with opera
The Opera festival in Aix en Provence was founded 75 years ago by Gabriel Dussurget and Lily Pastré, his mécène. It is now run by Pierre Audi, an opera director who ran the Almeida theater in London in the 1980’s, and Julien Benhamou its artistic director. Like for the first edition in 1948, a Cosi fan Tutte was programmed this … Read More
Here and there, fun moments of the week
I could not be at musée d’Orsay to see the only representation of “Une femme peut en cacher une autre” ( a woman can hide another) but numerous friends told me how charming it was and I therefore read the text “Manet, Degas, Une femme peut en cacher une autre” published by Samsa/UPT, which is of great interest. The authors, … Read More
“Breaking the waves”, a film in 1996 and now an opera
If any of you remembers Lars Von Trier’s film “Breaking the wave“, starring Emma Watson, which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or in 1996, you will be sorry to have missed the amazing opera by American composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, which only played three times at Opera Comique this week. Conducted by Mathieu Romano and directed … Read More
The most portrayed woman ever, Sarah Bernhardt is at Petit Palais
Out of 400 works shown at Petit Palais in the exhibition “Sarah Bernhardt, and the woman created the star”, there must be at least 200 portraits of hers in oil, watercolor, photographs and sculpture including a number of self portraits and works done by her lifelong companion Louise Abbéma. I had never realized what a good artist the actress was … Read More
“Dancing Pina” is not to be missed
It was very moving to hear the director Florian Heinzen-Ziob and one of the dancers, Lucieny Kaabral from Cabo Verde introduce the film at the first public screening at the Cinq Caumartin theater. One always says that the first day of a new film is the thermometer of its success and at 2 pm, the room was almost full. “Dancing … Read More
Here and there, more Paris temptations…
The presentation of the season at Opéra Comique was great fun and one could feel that Louis Langrée, the conductor who runs it since 2021 and the President, Jean Yves Larrouturou, a former director at Suez who is now a podcaster at France Musique, get on very well. The program is short but exciting with Charles Lecocq, “La fille de … Read More