NewsEvents

Shinbaï, le Vol de l’âme

Versailles guests

In Japan there is a fascinating tradition of flower arrangement called ikebana. Choreographer Emmanuelle Huynh wanted to emulate the ikebana process by putting the high-priestess of this centuries-old tradition, Madame Okudaira, on stage. The floral arrangement is a metaphor for the world and it will now be performed on stage in the form of a giant bouquet. The meeting of these two cultures in the heart of the Versailles Orangery, a huge space that was home to the plants of the Sun King, will see a unique event combining dance, sensations and scents, an event invented and created for those lucky spectators who are invited to discover this secret, monumental space.

5 December 2009 5 p.m and 8 p.m
Orangery Rotunda
Choreography by Emmanuelle Huynh
This program can change

Booking soon available

Molière: The Hypochondriac [Le Malade imaginaire]

Versailles guests

Molière and Versailles are so closely intertwined that there would seem to be no need to justify a performance of his final masterpiece, Le Malade Imaginaire, at the Royal Opera; yet the fact is that a whole century separates the play from the building. The great interpreter of French theatre, Michel Bouquet, has played this cantankerous, visionary invalid so often that his Argan has come to be seen as the definitive version. The aim of this performance is to return the author, the play and its most astonishing interpreter of the past 50 years to the magic place where Louis XIV would have dreamed of presenting it.

Royal Opera, Thursday 10 and Friday 11 December 2009
Opéra Royal
Michel Bouquet – directed by Georges Werler
Between 45 and 150 euros

Booking

Juliette Greco

Versailles guests

“Greco has millions in her voice: millions of poems” (Sartre). Rarely has a singer performed so many great texts. A leading light of the intense, vibrant intellectual world of post-war Paris when Sartre and Camus would bump into each other at the Café de Flore, her songs brought the French language to the whole world. From the very beginning of her career, the greatest poets entrusted her with their words: Raymond Queneau, “Si tu t’imagines”; Jules Laforgue, “l’Eternel feminine”; and Jacques Prévert, “les Feuilles mortes”. The mystery of her black-lined eyes and her warm, composed voice never failed to fascinate, enabling her to impose her own unique style: light yet intense, sensual yet serious.

Royal Opera
Monday 14 December 2009
Between 60 and 150 euros

Booking

Lyrical Gaiety: Royal Offenbach!

Versailles guests

The Second Empire was profoundly marked by the musical dynamism which Offenbach succeeded in creating with his dazzling, irreverent talent on the French operatic stage. Sweeping away both Grand Opera and the Opera Comique from the past century, Offenbach’s operetta won a place in the hearts of the French people. Here are the most beautiful excerpts for this evening of lyrical gaiety served up by the wonderful Anne Marguerite Werster and Gilles Ragon and the mischievous Jean Christophe Keck, the foremost interpreter of the works of Offenbach: Champagne!

Wednesday 16 December 2009
Royal Opéra
Anne Marguerite Werster, soprano, Gilles Ragon, tenor- Orchestre National d’Ile de France, conducted by Jean Christophe Keck

Booking

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte

The shows

Cosi fan tutte, a supreme distraction, is presented here in a chamber opera version for thirteen wind instruments and a basso continuo. That was the original configuration used by Mozart in his Gran Partita. Here, voices and wind instruments are brought together for an inventive score: the breaths that breathe life into the instruments admirably accentuate the feelings that link the characters of the humorous story that goes tragically wrong. In this work, which is both intimate (as it is so in touch with the most secret human passions) and exuberant (as it is marked through its many marvellous ensembles by the imprint of a desire for madness and extravagance), spectators will be carried away by its innovation and freshness and the subtlety and elegance of Mozart’s music which exposes all the feelings of the human condition.

Friday 18 December at 8 pm, Sunday 20 December at 3 pm, Monday 21 at 8 pm - 2009
The Royal Opera
Libretto: Lorenzo Da Ponte
Ensemble Philidor
Conductor: François Bazola
Production: Yves Beaunesne

subject to changes
 
With the support of ARCADI

from €60 to €150