An exceptional season at the Opéra Bastille
Published on 10 February 2018, dans Entertainment
Just a few steps from the Hotel Marais Bastille, the Opera Bastille offers a superb schedule of performances for the 2017/2018 season. It’s an exceptional place with acoustics considered to be the best in the world. The fine costumes, beautiful backdrops, huge stage and the very high level of technical ability of the performers enable the spectator to appreciate the experience to the fullest.
Verdi and Rossini, featured at the opera
A Masked Ball will immerse you in the heart of Verdi's magnificent œuvre. This is an opera in three acts with a libretto based loosely on the assassination of Gustav III, King of Sweden, who was shot while attending a masked ballroom dance. The work had an eventful genesis, but Verdi’s tenacity ensured it made its premiere performance in Rome in 1859. The Italian romantic composer returns to the Opera Bastille with La Traviata, a great tragic opera in which the heroine is torn between moral duty and love. The current production boasts the extraordinary staging of director Benoît Jacquot. Then Verdi’s Il Trovatore will enchant the beginning of summer in a production by Àlex Ollé.
The Opera Bastille also welcomes Rossini who, thanks to the talent of Damiano Michieletto, will ignite the stage with The Barber of Seville, his most famous opera, considered by many to be the Italian opera-bouffe masterpiece. You also have the opportunity to attend Wagner’s Parsifal, directed by Richard Jones, and Bluebeard’s Castle, an opera in one act by Bela Bartok.
Enchanting ballets
The Opéra Bastille will also resonate to the choreographies of Benjamin Millepied and Maurice Béjart. With Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel's legendary ballet, Benjamin Millepied lets go of rigid sensibility, forging distinctive kinetic characteristics for each of his principals, giving free rein to the bounding joy of the dancers with ever-shifting patterns of fluid choreography. The popular Ravel’s Bolero is a fine showcase for the immense talent of the choreographer, Maurice Béjart. The well-known music and its oriental accents unwinds tirelessly on itself into an orchestral crescendo that ends up devouring the sound space. Also on the schedule is Orpheus and Eurydice, a ballet featuring choreography by Pina Bausch, and Romeo and Juliet, directed by Sasha Waltz. The German choreographer has captured the choral symphony by Berlioz and translated the romanticism to offer a poignant version of the famous legend of the lovers of Verona. After an evening at the Opera Bastille you’ll reach the quiet of your room at the Hotel Marais Bastille, ears still ringing with wonderful music, and head crowded with unforgettable moments.
