Taking part in an artistic experimental workshop a few days before the performance, and experiencing art through singing, dance or theater, is an ideal approach for the children, the teenagers and their parents to understand the vision of the artists performing at the Amphithéâtre.

Booking conditions:

• Workshop reserved for ticket holders (for the performance in question)
• A workshop will be proposed when booking your performance ticket
• Workshops are reserved to children and accompanying adults
• Unaccompanied children are not allowed
  
  

Prices:

• Adult €5
• Under 15 €4

An ensemble of singers and instrumentalists specialized in the performance of Baroque music on period instruments, Les Arts Florissants are renowned the world over. Founded in 1979 by the Franco-American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie, the Ensemble, named for a short opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, has played a pioneering role in the revival of a Baroque repertoire that had long been neglected. Today that repertoire is widely performed and admired: not only French music from the reign of Louis XIV, but also more generally European music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Since 2007, the Ensemble is also conducted by the British tenor Paul Agnew, who is appointed Musical Codirector of Les Arts Florissants in 2019. Each season Les Arts Florissants give around 100 concerts and opera performances in France and are an active ambassador for French culture abroad.The Ensemble has produced an impressive discography: nearly 100 recordings (CD and DVD) and its own collection in collaboration with harmonia mundi directed by William Christie and Paul Agnew.

In recent years, Les Arts Florissants have launched several education programs for young musicians. The most emblematic is the Academy of Le Jardin des Voix: created in 2002, it is held every two years and has already brought a substantial number of new singers into the limelight. The Arts Flo Juniors program, launched in 2007, enables conservatory students to join the orchestra and chorus for the length of a production, from the first day of rehearsals up to the final performance. And then there is the partnership between William Christie, Les Arts Florissants and New York's Juilliard School of Music, which since 2007 has allowed a fruitful artistic exchange between the U.S. and France. Launched in 2021, a yearly program of masterclasses in Thiré (Vendée, Pays de la Loire) comes to complete this panel of programs with short working sessions led by William Christie and Paul Agnew, to help young professionals improve their skills.

Les Arts Florissants also organize numerous events aimed at building new audiences. Linked to each year’s concert program, they are designed for both amateur musicians and non-musicians, adults as much as children.

In 2012, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants created the festival Dans les Jardins de William Christie, in partnership with the Conseil départemental de la Vendée. An annual event, the festival brings together artists from Les Arts Florissants, pupils from the Juilliard School and finalists from Le Jardin des Voix for concerts and promenades musicales in the gardens created by William Christie at Thiré, in the Vendée. In addition to the festival, Les Arts Florissants are working with the endowment fund Les Jardins de Musique de William Christie towards the creation of a permanent cultural venue in Thiré. In 2017, following a decision by the French Ministry of Culture, Les Arts Florissants and the endowment fund « Les Jardins de Musique de William Christie » have been awarded the national label « Centre culturel de Rencontre », which distinguishes projects associating creation, patrimony and transmission. In 2018, Les Arts Florissants become the Foundation Les Arts Florissants – William Christie.

Les Arts Florissants receive financial support from the State, the Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs (DRAC), the Département de la Vendée and the Région Pays de la Loire. They have been artists in residence at the Philharmonie de Paris since 2015. The Selz Foundation, American Friends of Les Arts Florissants and Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank are Principal Sponsors.

Concert de Noël

"Vivaldi did not write his famous Gloria (RV 589) as a concert work, despite the impression that may have been given by various travelling diarists whose attendance at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice might not have been exclusively inspired by the love of God. His Gloria, now so celebrated, found its original context within the celebration of the mass presumably performed by the orphans and abandoned children living in the Ospedale Della Pieta whose musical exploits became one of the dominant attractions of 18th century Venice. The full understanding of any historic work depends on the appropriate re-imagining of its original context. That context, whether associated with a particular event or a specific commission is the reason why the composer puts his pen to paper, and inspires and defines the ambitions of the work. This reimagining however is not a simple affair. Relatively few mass movements that have come down to us, in comparison to the number of Vesper psalms seething, suggesting that a fully sung mass may have been a relatively rare occasion for Vivaldi and his musical orphans.

The few settings of the movements of the ordinary of the mass by Vivaldi include a single Kyrie (RV 586) two Gloria settings (RV 588/9) and a Credo setting (RV 591). No Sanctus or Agnus Dei setting has survived the ravages of time. Even the works that survive show signs of important external influences. In both Glorias can be seen a strong influence in form and and musical content of a setting by another composer writing in Venice at the time, Giovanni Maria Ruggieri. The Kyrie is modelled on Vivaldi’s own setting of the Magnificat; the opening introduction for strings is a direct quotation of the opening choral movement and the final movement is related to the fugue to be found in the composer’s Concerto Madrigalesco (RV 129) for strings. The Credo (RV 591) is related to Vivaldi’s own setting of In exitu Israel (RV 604) and borrows thematic material from the same Magnificat used for the Kyrie.

We use these borrowings as inspiration for the reconstruction of the essential mass movements missing from Vivaldi’s Mass Ordinary, the Sanctus and Agnus Dei. These have been reimagined using Vivaldi’s own sacred music as model (as he himself has done), allowing us to reconstruct an entire mass and for the first time, giving us the opportunity to hear Vivaldi’s music (and in particular the celebrated Gloria) in the context of the office for which it was composed and by which it was inspired. By studying the liturgical practises of Venice at the time we have been able to reconstitute a full mass allowing us some insight into the full impact of Vivaldi’s glorious glorious music in its context. It is perhaps important to remember that despite Vivaldi’s reputation for his concertos and operas, Vivaldi was also a Catholic priest for whom, one must presume, the mass was an essential and constant part of his daily ritual." 

Paul Agnew (

Musical co-director

of Les Arts Florissants)

“Peeping Tom” or the voyeur. The name of this company, founded in Brussels in 2000 by Gabriela Carrizo and Franck Chartier, is enough to convey the hallmark of its two founders: a theatrical form of dance offering fresh readings of life’s events as dreamlike as they are brutal. Drawn into worlds evoked by hyper-realistic decors – a mobile home, a cellar, a museum or an old people’s home – the spectator oscillates between tragedy and burlesque, tenderness and anxiety, dream and reality. For Peeping Tom, the huis clos of familiar situations remains an important source of creativity: Moeder (Mother) is the second volume in a trilogy on the family which began with Vader (Father) in 2014 and was completed in 2019 with Kind (Child). Peeping Tom performs at the Palais Garnier for the first time with its latest production: Diptych, composed of The Missing Door and The Lost Room, a new adaptation of pieces created for the dancers of the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT l).

The French mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes will meet the artists of the Academy during a public master class at the Amphitheatre.

A children’s tale for some and a profound meditation on life and death for others, Mozart’s last opera is a dazzling extravaganza that takes the form of an initiatory tale. The protagonists include a prince from a far-off land in search of a slightly suicidal princess, a giant snake, a boastful bird catcher, the Queen of the Night and a mysterious High Priest who prescribes strange rites of passage… Consonant with German comic-opera and enriched by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, Die Zauberflöte touches on the major themes of the 18^th century: education, morality, religion, culture, and nature.

In an elegant production of unspoilt simplicity, director Robert Carsen leads us through the four seasons and invting us to reflect on life as Death becomes our reassuring and consoling “best friend”.

With the music of the Dear Criminals in the atmosphere, Suites ténébreuses plays with fears, between shivers and curiosity. The monsters, lurked in our imagination at any age, show up on stage in a gloomy and fantastic staging.

Représentations tout public
15

January

2021 at 20:00 pm
16

January

2021

at

15:00 pm
16

January

2021

at

Each year, the Academy’s artists-in-residence enjoy the privilege of performing on the stage of the Palais Garnier with the Paris Opera’s Orchestra. The singers and musicians-in-residence thus follow in the footsteps of legendary figures from the world of opera. This gala evening is also aspecial moment for audiences who, in addition to discovering a new generation of lyric artists, rediscover some of opera’s most celebrated musical moments. The concert is conducted by Vello Pähn, musical and artistic director of the Estonian National Opera. For this concert, he will be joined by several artists whom he directed last season in Ravel’s "L’Enfant et les sortilèges" at the Palais Garnier.

The most popular opera of its time and acclaimed since its creation, Il Trovatore single-handedly illustrates the magic of opera. Returning to the stage of the Opéra Bastille in a production by Àlex Ollé, one of the six artistic directors of the Catalan collective La Fura dels Baus, this opera with its numerous twists and turns has all the ingredients of a cloak-and-dagger novel, including castles, soldiers, burnings at the stake, and outlaws...
Àlex Ollé has chosen to set Il Trovatore in the context of the First World War, thus justifying the extreme situations which the characters have to face: love, jealousy, hate and the desire for vengeance… Based around Antonio García Gutiérrez’s Spanish classic El Trovador ( 1836), the intense, complex libretto is transcended by the beauty of the singing and the director’s turbulent yet visionary vitality.

The young dancers of l’École de Danse de l’Opéra national de Paris, directed by Elisabeth Platel, open the doors of their classes to invite the young spectator to discover their learning of the work of a professional dancer: dance technic, singing and rehearsal of a ballet.  

Taking part in an artistic experimental workshop a few days before the performance, and experiencing art through singing, dance or theater, is an ideal approach for the children, the teenagers and their parents to understand the vision of the artists performing at the Amphithéâtre.

Booking conditions:

• Workshop reserved for ticket holders (for the performance in question)
• A workshop will be proposed when booking your performance ticket
• Workshops are reserved to children and accompanying adults
• Unaccompanied children are not allowed
  
  

Prices:

• Adult €5
• Under 15 €4

Prima la musica o prima le parole? Which should take precedence when composing an opera, the words or the music? Who will succeed in winning the heart of the Countess Madeleine—Olivier or Flamand? Because, on this particular evening sometime in the late 18^th century, she is celebrating her birthday near Paris. And it is for her that theatre director La Roche has brought together the talents of a poet and a composer.

The characters in Capriccio fuel a debate that raged during the Enlightenment and which lent its name to an opera by Salieri: Prima la musica e poi le parole. And it was that work which gave Stefan Zweig the idea for Capriccio. Deprived of his librettist even before the outbreak of war, Richard Strauss persevered with Krauss and wrote an “academic comedy” brimming with sensitivity and humour in a world where everything was falling apart.

When Robert Carsen came to grips with the opera, first performed in 1942, he juxtaposed the Age of Enlightenment with that of Paris under the Occupation, using the mirrors, perspectives and mises en abyme implicit in Charles Garnier’s architecture.

This edition of the Opening Gala brings together the Étoile dancers for an exceptional performance.   

Chamber music concerts by musicians of the Paris Opera Orchestra  

Operas ‘arias and songs inspired by the traditional and folkloric repertoire.