Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata
One of the most magnificent buildings in Lille is the neo-classical opera house that sits in the heart of its downtown. One of my biggest embarrasments as a resident of the city was that, until this weekend, I had not yet ever attended a performance of the Lille opera. This was not entirely my fault: the opera was closed for a while to bring up the very old-fashioned theatre in line with modern safety codes. Also, tickets are only on sale for a few weeks out of the year (with the few major operas like Figaro selling out on popular dates within twenty-four hours), so getting them requires planning ahead.
The small number of major operas put on per year underscores the most unique facet of opera in Lille: how lucky we are to have a dedicated opera house at all. This is definitely a city that punches above its weight when it comes to what I consider the finest of the fine arts (in that it brings together so many others: drama, acting, vocal and instrumental music, poetry...), and the Lille opera house is beautiful—a candidate for most beautiful building in the city. The interior is if anything more ornately neo-classical than the exterior; it's too bad I couldn't find a CC-licensed photo to show here. But it reminded me of the Marinsky theatre in Saint Petersburg (home of the Kirov ballet), and it's not exagerating to say that it holds up well in the comparison, in appearance if not in history. And being "in the provinces" like we are, tickets were ludicrously inexpensive.
As for the performance, it too was excellent, with a new mise en scène that worked great, a uniformly solid cast with particularly shining performances by Hélène Guilmette (as Susanna), Matthew Rose (as Figaro), and Kate Lindsey (Cherubino). It was a wonderful outing.
