Mozart - Così fan tutte - Les Talens Lyriques - Théâtre du Châtelet

22 February 2024, 22:00

It was wonderful to be back at the magnificent Théâtre du Châtelet in February 2024, having performed a complete Schubert symphony cycle here around this time last year. I returned, once again with Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, to give ten staged performances of Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte (1790). It is quite amazing to watch Christophe directing, juggling his roles as conductor and fortepianist. His concentration is unbelievable, and his accuracy on the keyboard is second to none; his genius is perhaps comparable to that of Mozart himself, who knows!

The opera featured the singers Agneta Eichenholz (Fiordiligi), Claudia Mahnke (Dorabella), Rainer Trost (Ferrando), Russell Braun (Guglielmo), Georg Nigl (Don Alfonso), and Patricia Petibon (Despina), with stage direction and set design by Dmitri Tcherniakov.

This month-long opera production (24 January–23 February 2024) was long enough for me to start feeling almost like a Parisian; I enjoyed staying in a small but well-equipped studio apartment in the Marais, on Rue de Braque, in-between Le Centre Pompidou and the Musée des Archives nationales. As someone who travels a lot, it was an enormous luxury to stay just a fifteen-minute walk away from the Théâtre du Châtelet. I was also only a short walk from many other famous sights, and the iconic Cathédrale Notre-Dame—the gradual removal of the scaffolding is currently revealing parts of the restoration.

I spent the majority of my free time in the first three weeks of the project working to finish my book (completing the first edit, designing the front cover, proofreading, writing an article for the Historic Brass Society and so on), and I spent a good amount of time discovering this vibrant area, cooking (excellent ingredients are available here), swimming at a nearby pool, and exploring the nearby horology and jewellery-making supply shops (the latter was a lucky coincidence). My wife joined me for the last week in Paris, and we explored Le Marais and beyond. We even visited Disneyland Paris—I hadn’t been to ‘Euro Disney’ for thirty years!

It was great to receive my copy of Les Talens Lyriques’ new CD ‘In the Shadows’, featuring the virtuoso tenor soloist Michael Spyres, which is due for general release in March. It was wonderful to be reminded of those recording sessions in 2022—I even played the keyed trumpet in some of the sessions. Our CD of Louise Bertin's Fausto also came out during this opera production run, and the limited edition CD-come-book I was given looks incredible!

I look forward to rejoining Les Talens Lyriques for a Handel oratorio in Oslo next month, and we will be revisiting this Mozart opera in April in Vienna—the city where Così fan tutte was first performed.

Russell Gilmour

writing on music, photography, engraving, travel and life as a freelance professional musician.

Russell Gilmour's innovative new book, 'Just' Natural Trumpet, is now available: please click here for more information.