By: Frank Cadenhead<\/p>\n
The September 15 press conference was unusually packed for the season announcement of Op\u00e9ra Comique. After being closed for 18 months and under new management, the interest in the future of this iconic Parisian institution was high. The new director, Olivier Mantei, was the only speaker and occupied the stage for about 50 minutes with details of the season and his approach to what will be on the stage at the Comique. Dramatic and innovative are two words to describe his vision.<\/p>\n
Mantei describes a season, unusually a calendar year, with eight production, seven of which are new, from February to December of 2017. The only revival in the group will launch the season. From 12 to 27 February, Fantasio<\/em> of Jacques Offenbach, staged by young director Thomas Jolly, will be hosted by the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre du Ch\u00e2telet, apparently while finishing touches of the Salle Favart are completed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the Salle Favart burned for the second time, 150 years ago, the Op\u00e9ra Comique company migrated to the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre du Ch\u00e2telet,\u201d commented Mantei and that welcome mat was still around. Ch\u00e2telet is itself closing for many months of interior restoration and their abbreviated season had space. The extra seats at Ch\u00e2telet will allow Mantei to offer a thousand seats at 25 Euros for the under 25 set and additional thousand for 35 Euros to those under 35.<\/p>\n With the fully restored hall, the season will be 10 months instead of the recent 7 or 8 and the budget will be \u20ac20 million, up from 16. How this can be sustained is in the details. There will be 50% more performances in a season, producing a hoped-for increase in ticket sales. The other noticeable thing in the season brochure is the number of co-productions of each offering. Some will see their first performance in other houses but all will circulate. Mantei had the time to plan with other theaters in Europe and that sharing will ease the dizzy cost of presenting opera.<\/p>\n The second production of the season, La Princesse l\u00e9g\u00e8re<\/em>, a world premiere of an opera for young people by Violeta Cruz, will allow all to experience the \u201cnew\u201d Salle Favart in March. The next month Alcione<\/em> by Marin Marais is on the schedule with Jordi Savall and the chorus and orchestra of La Concert des Nations. While this composer\u2019s name became famous with the French film Tout les matins de monde<\/em>, his works are rare on stage.<\/p>\n Six June performances of Le timbre d\u2019argent<\/em> (The silver stamp), a forgotten opera of Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns, are much anticipated. One of his 13 operas, subsequent performances did not go well and it was shelved despite positive notice from Bizet and Massenet. The libretto is by Jules Barbier and Michel Carr\u00e9 who wrote librettos for Faust<\/em> and Les Contes d\u2019Hoffmann.<\/em><\/p>\n At the end of September, a lyric creation, Miranda<\/em>, features music of Purcell woven into a story of memories and emotions inspired by the death of the title character. After their acclaimed collaboration with Bach cantatas, the expectations are high for Katie Mitchell and the young conductor Rapha\u00ebl Pichon and his orchestra and chorus, Ensemble Pygmalion. In October, a new opera, Kein Licht<\/em>, by the French composer Philippe Manoury, will see its French debut. A commission of the Op\u00e9ra Comique, it will have first performances at the RuhrTriennale in August with subsequent performances in Luxembourg, Zagreb, Strasbourg and Munich. The Magic Flute<\/em> in November originates from the Komische Oper Berlin with a production directed by Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky (who also serves as intendant there). The season closes in December with Rossini\u2019s Le Comte Ory<\/em> with Louis Langr\u00e9e conducting the Orchestre des Champs-Elys\u00e9es and a new staging by Denis Podalyd\u00e8s.<\/p>\n It is obvious that Olivier Mantei has no interest in spoon-feeding his audience the standard repertory. The season booklet is filled with new initiatives which points to a clear intent to be an incubator for creativity. He has transformed the \u201cAcademie\u201d – a collection of resident and associated singers, some at the top of their careers, some at the beginning – into the Troupe Favart, a collection that replicates a group that principally work with one company. The icing on the cake for this new season is that the Op\u00e9ra Comique will launch a new pastry, the “Favart,” a nod to its chief competition, Op\u00e9ra.<\/p>\n The Op\u00e9ra Comique season: http:\/\/www.opera-comique.com\/en\/seasons\/2017-season<\/p>\n <\/p>\n