The Paris Opera has announced that as the health situation does not offer any prospect of welcoming the public back in the short term, it is “unfortunately obliged” to cancel performances until Monday 5 April.
All the public performances of the new production of Aida, Faust (scheduled from 12 March to 3 April), as well as Roland Petit's Notre-Dame de Paris, (scheduled from 26 March to 6 April) have been suspended.
Performances scheduled for April, except for the Jeunes Danseurs de l'Opéra evening, are at this stage being maintained with some changes of dates. At the Palais Garnier, rehearsals continue for Angelin Prejlocaj's ballet Le Parc for performances from 7 to 27 April, with two additional performances on 9 and 12 April. Rehearsals are also continuing for the opera Faust, and the ballet Notre-Dame de Paris, which will be performed from 6 to 21 April and 7 April to 7 May respectively, health conditions permitting.
Managing Director, Alexander Neef, said,
Many of you are eagerly awaiting our theatres' reopening; we are most grateful and assure you of all our efforts to meet your expectations when the time comes. To keep in touch with the Opera, do not hesitate to watch our productions and documentaries on our platform at chezsoi.operadeparis.fr.
Le Parc, Faust and Notre-Dame de Paris should be recorded and broadcast on France Télévisions, and the new production of Aida, directed by Lotte de Beer, is now available on arte.tv.
Neef adds,
In this ever-uncertain context, we remain determined to prepare our forthcoming productions so that we can share the emotions of live performance with you as soon as possible. The artists, technicians and all the teams of the Paris Opera join me in thanking you for your trust and sincerely hope to welcome you back soon.
Nicolas Le Riche, Josua Hoffalt, Eleonora Abbagnato and Florian Magnenet in Notre-Dame de Paris by Roland Petit © Anne Deniau-Opéra national de Paris
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
