Nick Hammond
France Wins the World Cup
Allez les Bleus!
A few weeks ago, when I realized that I would be in Paris on the day of the World Cup soccer final, as an England fan I began to harbor totally unrealistic dreams of being there for a France-England final. … Read More
L’Heure Espagnole & Gianni Schicchi
Belly Laughs at the Opera
In the opera world, it has now become the rule rather than the exception to pair Maurice Ravel’s 1911 one-act opera L’Heure Espagnole with Giacomo Puccini’s 1918 single-act Gianni Schicchi. It is easy to see why: although each piece … Read More
Left Bank: Art, Passion, and the Rebirth of Paris 1940-50
Intellectual Paris during the Occupation and Beyond
Agnès Poirier’s scintillating new book, Left Bank: Art, Passion, and the Rebirth of Paris 1940-50, focuses on an extraordinary decade in Paris’s cultural and intellectual history. Poirier, who will be familiar to readers who follow her regular articles for the … Read More
Living in Paris
Au Revoir, Monsieur José
In the 20 years that I have owned a little studio apartment in Paris’s ninth arrondissement, the district has changed considerably. Almost every restaurant has been replaced at successive intervals by other restaurants; fancy gift shops have been transformed into Italian … Read More
La Bohème
Tragic Love in a Frosty Setting
Imagine the scene. German director Claus Guth has been asked to create a new production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème for the Bastille Opera House in Paris. “I need to shake up this old chestnut.” he says to himself. “Let … Read More
Visages Villages
Seeing the Power of the Imagination
What a surprising pleasure to see the new documentary Visages, Villages, by 89-year-old Agnès Varda, made with 34-year-old artist JR and first shown out of competition at this year’s Cannes Film festival. Throughout the course of the film, both Varda … Read More
Tartuffe or the Hypocrite
Blasphemous Molière Play Reconstructed
Molière’s comedy Tartuffe is probably the most famous – and infamous – play in the French repertoire. First staged as a three-act piece at Versailles in 1664 in front of Louis XIV, with the title Tartuffe or the Hypocrite, its … Read More
Anja Harteros
Soprano's Sterling Recital Sparks Extra Enthusiasm
Even though opera and ballet inevitably dominate the schedule at Paris Opera’s two locations, the occasional one-off event is worth signaling, especially when it is a recital at the Palais Garnier by the German soprano Anja Harteros, who will be … Read More
The Snow Maiden & Wozzeck
Exceptional Singing Distinguishes Two Operas
Two very different operas, written less than half a century apart, were staged on successive evenings at the Opéra Bastille last week. The operas of Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) are all too rarely performed outside of Eastern Europe, so … Read More
Césars 2017
César Looks to Oscar for Inspiration
Who needs the Oscars when you can have the Césars? The immediate answer is that the organizers of the Césars themselves seem to be the ones who can’t do without their American equivalent. Like the British Oscars – the BAFTAs … Read More