Nick Hammond
Médée
Stage Magic
Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s opera Médée (called a tragédie lyrique) has had a lot of waiting to do. The dramatist Pierre Corneille wrote his version of the Medea myth as early as 1634, at the beginning of his career. Thomas Corneille, 19 … Read More
Madame de Sévigné
Dearest Daughter . . .
The fact that the life of Marie, Marquise de Sévigné (1626-96) has, as far as I am aware, never been made into a feature film before is perhaps unsurprising. How does one remain true to the reason her name is … Read More
Klaus Mäkelä, Véronique Gens, Philippe Jordan
Music Made in France
Still not yet 30, Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä is the man of the moment in the classical music world. Not only has he been the music director of the Orchestre de Paris since 2021, but he is also chief conductor … Read More
Making Of
Through a Lens Darkly
There is nothing film directors like more than to make movies about their own craft. From classics like Fellini’s 8 1/2, Truffaut’s La Nuit Américaine (Day for Night) and Singin’ in the Rain to more recent examples like The Artist, … Read More
Bedbugs and Other Paris Vermin
Invasion of the Mutant Super-Rats
Recently, the press in France – and especially in other countries – has been whipped up to a frenzy with stories about Paris being infested by bedbugs (punaises de lit in French). After all, nothing energizes commentators writing about other … Read More
L’Été Dernier (Last Summer)
Echoes of Phaedra
Writer and filmmaker Catherine Breillat made her name with explicit, prolonged depictions of sex and sexuality, perhaps most notoriously in Romance (1999), in which she directed Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi in a number of unsimulated sex scenes, and À … Read More
Lohengrin
Wagner at War
The first night of Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s Paris Opera début at the Bastille was destined to be a sensational event. Serebrennikov, who has always been outspoken in his home country over such issues as LGBTQ rights (he is openly … Read More
Yannick
(Dangerously) Live Onstage!
Quentin Dupieux is one of the most original, innovative and downright wacky movie directors around. All his films have started from a completely absurd premise; for example, in Deerskin, the protagonist falls in love with a deerskin jacket that speaks … Read More
Mon Crime
French Stars Camp It Up
Mon Crime is the latest in the extraordinary number of movies that director François Ozon manages to churn out at a very regular rate. Since his first short film in 1988, he has released at least one movie per year … Read More
Arrête avec Tes Mensonges
A Beautiful Betrayal
Adapting a much-loved novel for the big screen is always a fraught business: how do you keep the book’s readers happy while at the same time creating a piece that can stand on its own as a cinematic work? Philippe … Read More