Forum Opéra

André Campra is too often seen as a mere link between Lully and Rameau. Yet in the twenty or so lyric scores in his catalogue, the composer from Aix-en-Provence developed a deeply original style that obviously owes much to Lully, but is also infused with Cavalli and Scarlatti. Even more than with Charpentier, we can hear the influence of the Italian manner. Although operas by Rameau – and to a lesser extent by Lully – are regularly performed today, performances of works by Campra are

Pelléas et Mélisande, proposed by Eric Ruf, General Administrator of the Comédie Française, and co-produced by the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, the Opéra de Dijon, the Stadttheater Klagenfurt and the Opéra de Rouen Haute-Normandie, is being revived at the Théâtre national du Capitole in Toulouse. During its travels, this production has seen a number of casts, notably that of the TCE, which has been reviewed in these columns. The one offered in Toulouse is a marvel, supported by a staging full

If live performance survives in spite of all the economic indicators, it is because, unlike any other genre – including cinema – it offers a part of the unexpected needed to experience a thrill. Take the Instant Lyrique with Anne-Catherine Gillet, a delightful soprano that Paris applauded last year in Le Domino Noir and Liège did a few weeks ago in Gounod’s Faust.

Couple her with a partner relatively unknown up to now as having only recently left the conservatoire: Victoire Bunel, a

That Lully’s Phaéton was an allusion to Fouquet’s fall, the minister guilty of having wanted to rise too closely to the Sun King, is possible, but for his production, Benjamin Lazar has chosen a totally different interpretation. This terrible story of all-consuming ambition could take place in any setting without losing any of its force, as we are shown by Mathieu Lorry-Dupuy’s sober and monumental set and Alain Blanchot’s costumes that deliberately mix periods and places. In this lyrical tragedy where the Lullyist art of