Threat to Paris Opera Ballet performances

[SheilaC]

I have just spotted a tweet advising people intending to attend performances on Saturday 8 December at the Paris Opera.  Presumably they are considering cancelling performances due to the planned demonstrations by les gilets jaunes.

They haven't bothered emailing me to warn me that my matinee seat at the Bastille (for Nureyev's Cinderella) is in jeopardy.

The news reports have focused on trouble near the Arc de Triomphe, some distance away, although the Bastille area can attract demonstrations because of its role in the French Revolution.

[MAX]

https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/message-to-spectators-2

 

Demonstration will start on Place de la Bastille on Saturday, I am sorry for you Sheila 😒

[loveclassics]

I suppose we might get the same thing here if people have to endure another referendum and be forced to listen to even more stuff about Brexit!

 

Linda

[Vanartus]

2 hours ago, loveclassics said:

I suppose we might get the same thing here if people have to endure another referendum and be forced to listen to even more stuff about Brexit!

 

Linda

 

1) Politics I thought is not to be discussed on the Forum

 

2) Some of us would be willing to “endure” a second referendum 

 

3) Baroness Bull spoke very eloquently in the House of Lords today re the effects of Brexit on the arts.

 

4) ‘nuff said!

 

Nick 

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by Vanartus
Name added

[JohnS]

13 minutes ago, Vanartus said:

Baroness Bull spoke very eloquently in the House of Lords today re the effects of Brexit on the arts.

 

Many thanks for highlighting this Vanartus - news to me and I shall certainly look with interest.

[Yaffa]

12 hours ago, MAX said:

https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/message-to-spectators-2

 

Demonstration will start on Place de la Bastille on Saturday, I am sorry for you Sheila 😒

Sadly this might also affect the annual 'Demonstrations' (ballet, not political) of the Paris Opera Ballet School. For many younger students this is a major rite of passage, their first steps on the Palais Garnier stage, with family and friends coming from afar. (There are repeat performances on 16th and  23rd December - currently sold out but very very highly recommended)...

[Don Q Fan]

I hope things will have stopped by 27th!  fingers x'd the show will go ahead on Sunday Sheila.

[SheilaC]

Thanks Don Q. I've had a personal email from Paris Opera, in response to an email I sent them yesterday, and since received a general email sent to everyone who had a ticket for the Saturday matinee. It has been cancelled on police advice. Very disappointing but information I checked, thanks to Max, made it clear to me that it's likely that there will be a demonstration outside the Bastille Opera, also one at the Hotel de Ville, which would have been on my route to the theatre, so the cancellation may be wise. There seem to be several more demonstrations and strikes planned so I hope no-one else is affected.

[Odyssey]

Really sorry to hear this Sheila. I realise how very lucky I was to see Cinderella at the Bastille last week just two days before the large demonstrations in Paris. I thought the government had backed down following last weekend so why hasn’t the protest at the Bastille been cancelled?

[Vanartus]

Such a pity - really sorry you lost out. 

[Sim]

So sorry about this, Sheila.  I know how much you love going there.  Sadly strikes in France have spoiled things for me a few times.

[Quintus]

It’s awful, though opportunistic AD might have quickly dusted off Les Flammes de Paris.... ;)

 

 

[Quintus]

....or, I'm now thinking, a contemporary reimagining of Romeo and Juliet.  Young, impressionable Joan Macron fall in love with Gilles Martin, a trainee truck driver.  Their families clash on the tear-gas choked streets of Paris.

 

I give you... 'Gilles et Joan'.  

[bridiem]

50 minutes ago, Quintus said:

....or, I'm now thinking, a contemporary reimagining of Romeo and Juliet.  Young, impressionable Joan Macron fall in love with Gilles Martin, a trainee truck driver.  Their families clash on the tear-gas choked streets of Paris.

 

I give you... 'Gilles et Joan'.  

 

Who says ballet can't be relevant?!

[Don Q Fan]

Oh what a pity Sheila. Any chance you'll be able to see something else? Hope they refund everyone. I'll hold my breath for 27th. 

[Bruce Wall]

14 hours ago, Don Q Fan said:

Oh what a pity Sheila. Any chance you'll be able to see something else? Hope they refund everyone. I'll hold my breath for 27th. 

 

It is unfortunate .... So many people employed in support services around the different venues have also lost a day's pay.  

 

I think you'll be fine for the 27th though.  That's mid-week and the 'yellow-vests' need to work.  

 

See you next week in Berlin.  Looking forward to it.  

[SheilaC]

I'm glad to say, Bruce, that the Paris Opera staff will be paid for their day off.

As Yaffa said, the closure also stopped the Paris Opera Ballet School class demonstrations scheduled for Saturday. Apparently they have been retimed for Wednesday, but still very disappointing and disruptive for the children and their families.

I'm glad to say I was still able to see La Dame aux Camelias at the Garnier on Friday. Although well danced (Leonore Baulac and Mathieu Ganio in the main parts and Eve Grinsztajn and newly promoted Marc Moreau as Manon and Des Grieux) as always I was a bit disappointed in it as a ballet; the fusion of Margeurite's story with that of Manon must be confusing for people who've not read the ballet's plot and it reduces the emotional power. Ashton's version may not be one of his best works but in terms of structure and emotion it's more effective, in my view.

The media, as ever, have exaggerated the relative amount of violence in Paris on Saturday, at least during the day. I kept away from the main demonstration areas but saw a lot of Gilets jaunes, ambling about peacefully. But sat in a side street cafe, I saw a convoy of 20 police vans, a procession of 12 mounted police, armed vehicles and frequent police cars and vans going backwards and forwards. Arriving at Kings Cross station this morning what did I see- a lot more police!

[Bruce Wall]

Thanks much for yours as ever, Sheila.

 

Was in Paris - as I think you know - for work last week ... and did drop into the Palais G and saw the Dame aux Camelias much as your good self had done - though with a different cast.  Neumeier's is I agree a bit of a marmite ballet.  As Donald Sinden used to say:  'They give us the bones.  We put on the flesh.'   This, like Oneign, is a ballet where the interpreters make a definitive difference.  I first saw the ballet - in Paris as it happens - 22 years ago.  Then the cast was Letestu and Bullion.  Stephane Bullion was again Armand on Wednesday night - low these decades later - and WHAT a performance it was.  All the passion that a cancer survivor such as Bullion (and indeed myself) now holds he brought to bear across and around that large Garnier stage bursting every inch unto a brightly theatrical balletic flame.  His long second act solo - with its hairline fracture of sensitivity - was simply breathtaking; palpably concupiscent,.  Eleonora Abbagnato gave a heady response in turn as Marguerite.   The Company as a whole also came alive in a way they hadn't in the Robbins and most certainly not in the POB contributions to Balanchine Celebrations presentations at City Center in NYC - both last month.  Refreshing it t'was.  

 

Edited December 10, 2018 by Bruce Wall