Nick Hammond
Parsifal
A Knightly Cult
I must admit to approaching British director Richard Jones’s production at the Opéra Bastille of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal with some trepidation. Jones’s previous productions of Wagner’s other works, especially the Ring Cycle, have had a tendency to trivialize the most … Read More
Elektra
Hard-Hitting Production of Dark Tale
Richard Strauss’s one-act opera Elektra, the first of his many collaborations with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, is unrelentingly hard-hitting throughout its one hour and 45 minutes. No room or time is given for light relief as the heroine singlemindedly pursues … Read More
The Miser
Comédie Française Discovers the Comedy in Molière
The reopening of Paris theaters has come at just the right time for the Comédie Française, known fondly as La Maison de Molière, as 2022 is the 400th anniversary of the birth of the comic playwright. To mark this major … Read More
Retour à Reims
Book to Film, Left to Right, Key Element Omitted
Cinematic adaptations of books always carry with them multiple challenges. How faithful, for example, should one be to the written text? What should be omitted or added? And how does the film work purely on its own terms, without knowledge … Read More
Molière
To Laugh or To Cry?
Note to readers: To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the birth of the great French playwright Molière, we are republishing this commentary on his work, which first came out in Paris Update on November 18, 2020. A recorded version is … Read More
Paris-Briançon
Night Train
When we are informed at the beginning of Philippe Besson’s new novel, set on the overnight train from Paris to Briançon, that there will be deaths by the time dawn breaks, it would not be a complete surprise to find … Read More
Premier Sang
Diplomatic Training
Even though Amélie Nothomb’s new book, Premier Sang, is not the first openly autobiographical novel she has written – Le Sabotage Amoureux (1993), Stupeur et Tremblement (1999), Métaphysique des Tubes (2000) and Biographie de la Faim (2004) all draw inspiration … Read More
Une Femme du Monde
She Works Hard for the Money
Those of you who know Laure Calamy from her role as Noémie, Mathias’s assistant in Call My Agent, will be delighted to see her movie acting career going from strength to strength. She won the 2021 César for Best Actress … Read More
Lost Illusions
The Corruptions of Paris
Adapting the sprawling novels of Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) for the screen is never a simple process, and from all accounts director Xavier Giannoli has been working on the screenplay for Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions) for a number of years. … Read More
Œdipe
Live Opera Returns with the Myth of Oedipus
It is always exhilarating to herald the beginning of the operatic season with a new production of a rarely performed work, but when it is the first to be performed at the Opéra National de Paris after a two-year shut-down … Read More