Back to the operatic days when the book took top billing and the composer’s name was in the fine print. Collodi’s tale is an epic journey wrapped in sophisticated innocence that leaves you probably more disgusted than anything else — Collodi’s Pinocchio is not a charming child.
Tag: Aix-en-Provence
Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno in Aix
The tense, three hour knock-down-drag-out seduction of Beauty by Pleasure consumed our souls in this triumphal evening. Forget Time and Disillusion as destructors, they were the very constructors of the beauty and pleasure found in this miniature oratorio.
Pelleas et MÈlisande in Aix
Three parallel universes (before losing count) — the ephemeral Debussy/Maeterlinck masterpiece, the Debussy symphonic tone poem, and the twisted intricacies of a moldy, parochially English country estate.
Cosi fan tutte at the Aix Festival
Said and done the audience roared its enjoyment of the performance, reserving even greater enthusiasm to greet stage director Christophe HonorÈ with applauding boos and whistles that bespoke enormous pleasure, complicity and befuddlement.
Oberon, Persephone and Iolanta at the Aix Festival
Two of the important late twentieth century stage directors, Robert Carsen and Peter Sellars, returned to the Aix Festival this summer. Carsen’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a masterpiece, Sellars’ strange Tchaikovsky/Stravinsky double bill is simply bizarre.
Il turco in Italia at the Aix Festival
Twenty years ago stage director Christopher Alden introduced Rossini’s then forgotten comedy to Southern California audiences in a production that is still remembered. In Aix Alden has revisited this complex work that many critics now consider Rossini’s greatest comedy.
Winterreise and Trauernacht at the Aix Festival
That’s A Winter’s Journey and A Night of Mourning for metteurs-en-scËne William Kentridge (South Africa) and Katie Mitchell (Great Britain), completing the clean sweep of English language stage directors for the Aix Festival productions this year.
La Fl˚te EnchantÈe (2e Acte)
at the Aix Festival
In past years the operas of the Aix Festival that took place in the Grand ThȂtre de Provence began at 8 pm. The Magic Flute began at 7 pm, or would have had not the infamous intermittents (seasonal theatrical employees) demanded to speak to the audience.
Ariodante at the Aix Festival
High drama in Aix. Three scenarios in conflict — those of G.F. Handel, Richard Jones and the intermittents (disgruntled seasonal theatrical employees). Make that four — mother nature.
The Aix Festival 2013
Don Giovanni — the coup de coeur. Elektra — a masterpiece. Rigoletto — a hit and a miss.