Nick Hammond
Alexandre Tharaud: Le Temps Dérobé
The Loneliness of a Globe-trotting Pianist
While delving through the list of new movies to find one to review for this week’s Paris Update, I was faced with some strange options. The obvious choice was the two-and-a-half hour biopic Violette, about the writer Violette Le Duc’s … Read More
Alceste & The Makropoulos Case
Greeks and Glamour Open Paris Opera Season Sophie Koch as Alceste comforts her children. Photo: Opéra National de Paris/Agathe Poupeney When the Viennese composer Christoph Willibald Gluck wrote confidently in 1776, at the time of its first French production, that … Read More
L’Inconnu du Lac
Gripping Thriller Sans the Car Chase
If director Alain Giraudie, winner of the best director gong in the “Un Certain Regard” section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, has read the manual on how to create a gripping thriller in the year 2013, he must have … Read More
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Wagner Lightens Up After Über-Serious Works
On first encounter, Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg would seem to be an early work. Not only is it a comedy, completely at odds with the supernatural themes that pervade his later operas, but it contains all the elements … Read More
Les Invisibles
From the Closet To the Light
Director Sébastien Lifshitz is best known for his gay-related dramas (most notably Presque Rien and Plein Sud), but he has also produced documentaries at regular intervals (including one on fellow director Claire Denis). This latest documentary is about how the … Read More
What’s New 31.10.12
Paris Update What’s New in Paris BOUNCY BRIDGEBureau faceB: This Paris architectural firm has won a competitition to build a new pedestrian bridge over the Seine at the tip of the Ile de la Cité that will wobble when people … Read More
Barbe Bleue
Déjà Lu, Bubbles and All
Regular readers of Amélie Nothomb’s literary output might be forgiven for finding her latest offering, Barbe Bleue, somewhat familiar. In this novel, timed as always to coincide with la rentrée, the story centers on a person entering a mysterious home … Read More
The Tales of Hoffmann & Capriccio
Two Self-Regarding OperasTake the Stage Jane Archibald (Olympia) and Stefano Secco (Hoffmann). Photo: Opéra national de Paris/Ian Patrick The two productions opening the Paris opera season, Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann and Richard Strauss’s Capriccio (at the Bastille and … Read More
Adieu Berthe: L’Enterrement de Mémé
Wannabe Screwball Comedy Overplays Its Hand
Judging from the gales of laughter in the cinema and the number of people who left before the end of Adieu Berthe: L’Enterrement de Mémé (Granny’s Funeral) on the evening I saw it, you are going to either love or … Read More
Arabella
Fleming Ravishing AsStrauss’s Arabella Renée Fleming (Arabella), Iride Martinez (Die Fiakermilli) and Eric Huchet (Graf Elemer). Photo: Opéra national de Paris/Ian Patrick I blush to admit that every (mercifully rare) time I find myself on a grand staircase during a … Read More