Natalie Dessay’s Soulful Manon Starts Paris Homage to Massenet

January 16, 2012, 1:44 PM EST By Jorg von Uthmann

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- France is celebrating the centenary of Jules Massenet, its most successful Belle Epoque composer.

The country’s reigning diva, Natalie Dessay, has the title role in “Manon,” one of his two masterpieces, at the Bastille Opera. There’s also a charming exhibition at the Palais Garnier, “La Belle Epoque de Massenet.”

Dessay has played the frivolous Manon already in Geneva, Barcelona and Chicago -- yet, strangely, never before in Paris.

While her voice has lost some of its youthful sheen, Dessay is still a perfect interpreter of that complex character -- naive, coquettish, soulful and, in the end, tragic. If you want to catch her in one of the stellar moments of her career, get the DVD of her Barcelona “Manon” with Rolando Villazon as her passionate partner.

Giuseppe Filianoti isn’t in Villazon’s league. He is a small-scale Chevalier Des Grieux with a restricted top and a thick Italian accent, reminding us of the sad fact that the elegant conversational style of the Opera-Comique, where “Manon” was a staple of the repertoire since its premiere in 1884, is irretrievably lost.

Paul Gay is more at ease as the Chevalier’s father. Franck Ferrari, on the other hand, is a coarse Lescaut, Manon’s cousin. The orchestra, conducted by Evelino Pido, turns in an effective though not particularly subtle performance.

In an interview with the Bastille Opera’s house magazine, director Coline Serreau said that she saw no need to go on an ego trip: Thanks to her films she had plenty of possibilities to live out her fantasies. In fact, she has made her name in the movies; “Manon” is only her third opera staging.

Egomaniacal Colleagues

That laudable modesty didn’t prevent her from falling into the bad habit of her more egomaniacal colleagues to update the plots. That she does so only partially is no great help.

What we see is an incoherent mix of 18th-, 19th- and 20th- century dresses (costume designer: Elsa Pavanel). Lascaut appears as a punk rocker with metal chains and red hair.

The hostelry at Amiens in Act I looks like the main hall of New York’s Grand Central (sets: Jean-Marc Stehle and Antoine Fontaine). Instead of a coach, the two lovers flee on a motorbike.

Nor will everybody share Serreau’s fondness of visual jokes: Des Grieux’s big number in Act II, in which he daydreams about married bliss, is illustrated by a 1950s-style poster promoting kitchen utensils. The lady devotees of the preacher Des Grieux in Act III sail into his church on roller skates.

Rating: **.

Garnier Show

The exhibition at the Palais Garnier takes you back to where it all began. It brings together scores of Massenet’s operas, maquettes of their first productions, photos of the first casts, costumes and posters.

You also find views of Massenet’s overstuffed apartment and snapshots from his life as a professor at the Conservatoire where he taught from 1878 to his death. Gustave Charpentier, Ernest Chausson and Georges Enesco were among his pupils.

The show confirms Massenet’s reputation as a ladies’ composer. Of his 27 operas, 17 have female title roles. With quite a few of his stars, particularly the U.S. soprano Sibyl Sanderson, his first Thais and Esclarmonde, he had more than professional relationships.

Maybe that was the reason why he hated his first name: “Jules” is French slang word for “pimp.”

“Manon” is in repertory at the Opera Bastille through Feb. 13. “La Belle Epoque de Massenet” at the Palais Garnier runs through May 13. Information: www.operadeparis.fr.

(Jorg von Uthmann is a critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

--Editors: Mark Beech, Farah Nayeri.

To contact the writer on the story: Jorg von Uthmann in Paris at uthmann@wanadoo.fr.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

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Lavish Homes of Emir, Gold Digger Star in Paris Show: Review

January 04, 2012, 12:10 PM EST By Jorg von Uthmann

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- He married the daughter of a U.S. robber baron and, with her fortune, built the Palais Rose, the most sumptuous mansion in Belle Epoque Paris.

In 1906, Anna Gould divorced Boni de Castellane, her profligate and philandering husband, and in 1969, the Palais Rose was demolished to make room for a dull luxury block.

An exhibition at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris revives such bygone glories and invites you to explore a local specialty, the “hotel particulier.”

Under the monarchy, Parisians reserved the honorary title of “palais” to royal residences. Other mansions, even the most palatial, were modestly called “hotels particuliers” or private townhouses.

Unlike their Roman or Florentine peers, French aristocrats didn’t flaunt their wealth: Most hid their residences behind high walls. You had to be invited to discover the splendors inside.

Some mansions are now museums and open to the public, such as the Musee de Cluny, the Musee Carnavalet or the Musee Picasso. Most, though, have morphed into ministries or embassies and are off limits to tourists.

At the Cite de l’Architecture, a wing of the Palais de Chaillot, you can have a look behind the closed doors even if you don’t know anybody in the French administration or the corps diplomatique.

The first section recreates the ground floor of an archetypal hotel particulier with its traditional sequence of rooms -- the entrance hall, the antechamber, the salon, the dining room and the gallery.

Trendy Areas

After that introduction, you enter the historical part of the show which relates how the fashionable neighborhoods changed over time.

In the Middle Ages, a man of taste built his mansion near the Louvre. Under Louis XIII, the fashionable quartier moved to the Marais and the Ile Saint-Louis, under Louis XV to the Saint- Germain and Saint-Honore suburbs, and in the 19th century to the new neighborhood around Parc Monceau.

The changing styles are illustrated with maquettes, paintings, photographs and architectural drawings of outstanding specimens.

One of those, the Hotel Lambert on the Ile Saint-Louis, made headlines in recent years after the Rothschild family sold it to a brother of the emir of Qatar. His plans to modernize the venerable building sparked a storm of protest: The authorities were accused of sacrificing France’s national heritage to the whims of Oriental potentates.

After a venomous debate, a compromise looks to be in the works.

Great Cocotte

Another gem, the Hotel Beauharnais, was bought in 1818 by the King of Prussia and is now the residence of the German ambassador. Eugene de Beauharnais, son of Josephine who later married Napoleon, almost went bankrupt decorating his acquisition in the then fashionable Empire style.

It’s the most ravishing ensemble of that period in Paris.

The exhibition is discreet about the turbulent life of La Paiva, the great cocotte who built the only surviving hotel particulier on the Champs-Elysees.

Born Esther Lachmann in Moscow, the daughter of a Jewish weaver, she decided that she wasn’t made for a life in poverty and became the mistress of a series of rich men. One of these, a Marquis de Paiva, married her only to discover that his fortune couldn’t keep up with his wife’s lifestyle.

After inviting his creditors to an opulent last supper, the marquis shot himself. The mansion now belongs to the Travellers Club.

In niches, the show explores characteristic details of the hotel particulier: facades, doors, wall decorations, ceilings, gardens.

Boni de Castellane’s knowledge of those details and his exquisite taste helped him survive in style after his divorce: He became an antiques dealer, with mostly U.S. customers, and titled his memoirs “L’Art d’Etre Pauvre,” or “The Art of Being Poor.”

“L’Hotel Particulier: Une Ambition Parisienne” is at the Cite de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine through Feb. 19. Information: www.citechaillot.fr.

(Jorg von Uthmann is a critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

--Editors: Jim Ruane, Mark Beech.

To contact the writer on the story: Jorg von Uthmann in Paris at uthmann@wanadoo.fr.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

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Satyrs Pursue Nymphs in Paris Show on Life in Pompeii: Review

December 01, 2011, 5:03 AM EST By Jorg von Uthmann

Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Bunga bunga wasn’t invented by Silvio Berlusconi. As the murals in Pompeii make clear, the ancient Romans knew a thing or two about debauchery.

Pompeii, the city that disappeared on Aug. 24, 79 A.D. under lava and volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius, is in a sad state. In November 2010, the collapse of the gymnasium for gladiators prompted the opposition to call a no-confidence vote, accusing Berlusconi’s government of chronically underfunding the preservation of Italy’s cultural heritage.

The government survived the motion by three votes. That was a harbinger of its eventual downfall a year later.

“Pompei: Un Art de Vivre,” a show at the Musee Maillol in Paris, seeks to give an impression of daily life in that wealthy town of 12,000-15,000 inhabitants before fate struck.

The exhibition’s leitmotif is the domus, the single- family home, as opposed to the insulae, the multistory apartment buildings that dominated imperial Rome.

These villas easily covered 800 or 900 square meters and were built around three central spaces -- the atrium with an opening in the roof; the tablinum, the main living room; and the peristylium, another court surrounded by columns.

The organizers say such a house would be far preferable to the living conditions of later generations. This is true as far as hygiene is concerned: The Romans wouldn’t have tolerated the squalor at the Sun King’s court in Versailles.

Bronze Bathtub

Although only a few houses had bathrooms (balnea) with running water, spending at least an hour at the public baths (thermae) was part of the daily routine.

The show includes a bronze bathtub, shells for cosmetics, bottles with ointments, mirrors and a strigil -- a little scythe used for scraping sweat and dirt from the skin. A wall text informs you that the dark-haired women from southern Italy liked to have their hair dyed blonde.

To profit from the heat of the oven, the bathroom was adjacent to the kitchen. On display, along with kitchen utensils, are glasses, cups and silver or bronze flatware used for the cena, the main meal taken in the afternoon.

Some of these utensils are quite elaborate, such as a decanter in the form of a female head.

A mural depicting the Greek wine god Dionysos confirms our suspicion that the Romans weren’t teetotalers.

However, they always mixed their wine with water. Those who didn’t were considered alcoholics.

Satyrs and Nymphs

Sex was omnipresent. Before Christianity became the official religion of the empire, the Romans had a laid-back attitude to extramarital or homosexual affairs.

The walls in Pompeii abound with satyrs pursuing nymphs and other erotic scenes, some displaying an amazing degree of copulatory acrobatics.

In many homes, a proudly erect phallus in marble or bronze occupied a prominent place as a symbol of health and as a protector against evil.

Contorted bodies and a dog desperately pulling at its chain -- reconstructed by pouring gypsum plaster into the hollows left in the ash -- remind you of the fateful moment when life in Pompeii came to a sudden end.

“Pompeii: Un Art de Vivre” is at the Musee Maillol, Paris, through Feb. 12, 2012. Information: www.museemaillol.com.

(Jorg von Uthmann is a critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

--Editors: Jim Ruane, Farah Nayeri.

To contact the writer on the story: Jorg von Uthmann in Paris at uthmann@wanadoo.fr.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

View the original article here