Jan 4, 2008

World event in the middle of nowhere


On October 18, 1854, the Paris opera salle Le Peletier premiered La Nonne Sanglante, opéra en 5 actes de Charles Gounod (libretto Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne). The piece was played 11 times before falling to the chaos of the Paris Opera at the time (more on that to follow). The last performance was on Nov.17 1854. It has never been performed since then. On January 19, the Theater Osnabrück somewhere in Germany will create the sensation as they will premiere this Nonne Sanglante. For the first time ever outside of France, and for the first time since 1854. A recording is supposed to follow, though I doubt the cast will be anything but memorable, one of the reasons why I won't attend any performance (two weeks before the premiere, still no name of any of the cast members published on their website, this can't be good). Since I am a great Gounod admirer, I will most certainly try to catch a recording or broadcast of it (and does heavily count on the help of the guys of OperaShare for that matter). And intend to start a mini-series of posts about the events around the genesis of this opera, some of which are truly enjoyable. So I declare this January to be the month of La Nonne Sanglante.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's more of the Berlioz "Nonne" than you think: three arias and three duets with connecting passages, as performed in Montpelier, France, last summer. It equates to the the second act, essentially complete. See the New Berlioz Edition.