Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten (Aix-en-Provence, 2026)

Richard Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten

Festival d'Aix-en Provence, 2026

Klaus Mäkelä, Barrie Kosky, Michael Spyres, Vida Miknevičiūtė, Nina Stemme, Brian Mulligan, Ambur Braid, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Tomasz Kumięga, Daniel Miroslaw, Robert Lewis, Ella Taylor, Héloïse Mas, Laurence Pouderoux, Eugénie Lefebvre, Laura Jarrell

ARTE Concert - 9th July 2026

Die Frau ohne Schatten is one of the most darkly enigmatic of all opera works, shrouded in ominous metaphors with uncommon mythical imagery and obscure meaning. Composed between 1914 and 1917, it's above all a product of its time, Richard Strauss and his librettist, the poet Hugo von Hofmannstahl, grappling with the industrialisation of war and a time of social upheaval; dealing with a modern era of new philosophical thinking and artistic expression in their Viennese society and trying to find a new way of expressing all that in theatrical and musical terms. 

Restaging the opera and working out how much to adhere to its original stage directions in order to retain the underlying purpose of the work is up for grabs and evidently it inspires many impressive interpretations and re-imaginings. Above all of course the work has a tremendous inner power of its own that never fails to put across. Giving the work to a director like Barrie Kosky to direct at the Aix-en-Provence Festival is therefore an intriguing proposition.

Behind all the fairy tale imagery and obscure symbolism there is at least one clear theme that runs through the work. The Woman without a Shadow is clearly stated as a metaphor for the infertility of the Empress, who since she is unable to conceive a child, her husband the Emperor will turn into stone. Christof Loy’s astonishing "literal" 2011 Salzburg Festival reproduction of the 1955 Vienna recording of this opera by Karl Böhm managed to tease out a deeply moving reflection on all the unborn children of those who died in the war. Or as the Aix programme notes succinctly describe the theme of the opera in a wider context, it's a question of "what is the essence of humanity and why should it be perpetuated?"

It's also notable of course that there is a clear distinction drawn between the Emperor of a mythical realm's desire for a successor and the human world of Barak the Dyer and his wife's choice to bring children into the world under rather more difficult conditions. The work captures the human tenderness in the pain of living for both these couples and Strauss’s music gets to the heart of it with beautiful lyricism and with the emotional and psychological depth that Hofmannstahl pours imaginatively into the fable. The other interpretation - or an additional one on top of that one - is that the shadow represents the conscience and the danger of those who act and rule without the basic human quality of having a conscience. But essentially whichever way you look at it, it's about defining humanity and its potential for turning towards destruction and self-destruction and the consequences of which are made quite clear at the end of the second Act.

The opening of the third Act III consequently hits hard, all the more so in this production due to the exceptional singing of Brian Mulligan as Barak and Ambur Braid as his wife. Kosky however gives them the ideal platform: a completely white box, the lighting such indeed that there is almost no trace of any shadows (it's the first time I've ever seen Die Frau ohne Schatten where the stage lighting does actually make the shadows disappear); just the hint of reflection but no shadow. Husband and wife wander in space, blind to each other, the effect almost overwhelming as the intent of this elaborately arranged and conceived work is indeed supposed to be. The subsequent scene between the Empress and the Nurse in the subsequent scene in the box no less effective, again the singing expressing everything, Vida Miknevičiūtė as the Empress in particular stunning in her delivery, the killing of her nurse played by Nina Stemme coming as quite a shock on top of that. In a work filled with symbolism like this, the director is free to let their own imagination run riot to serve the imagery and intent and Kosky obliges right up to a suitably enigmatic ending.

The work contains all the ingredients to impress and touch deeply. There is a contrast and dynamic between the two worlds that is brought out as much by the singing as the score and libretto, making it feel vital, real and alive. As noted above, both Vida Miknevičiūtė and Canadian soprano Ambur Braid are both superb here. Typically for Strauss the vocal challenges are considerable for the female roles, but the emotional journey is also critical and both handle it impressively. Brian Mulligan as Barak is also outstanding, looking and sounding like he is having a deep crisis and emotional breakdown at times, but his singing is assured and controlled. Once an Empress herself, Nina Stemme's experience with this opera brings additional depth to the role of the Nurse and she still sings and performs to a very high standard. There really is no other standard that will do in this opera for any of the main roles. Michael Spyres has recently been taking on heavier roles like this and his voice, a little deeper now, is ideal and as golden as ever, but doesn't seem to establish a sense of character or even real menace as the Emperor.

With voices of that quality to work with, Barrie Kosky likewise tones down his usual excesses when presented with an opera of rich excess. Can you do a minimalist Die Frau ohne Schatten? Would you even want to? Would you ever expect Barrie Kosky to deliver a minimalist production? And yet, the director finds the right balance here, seeking to delve deeper into the meaning and the human above the spectacle and glamour, allowing flashes of wonder at the dream of other possibilities in a world yet to be born, but making sure that the reality always intrudes. The music does exactly the same. There is a distinction between the grubby ramshackle tower of the Dyer and the sterile, cold and lifeless world of the Emperor. Sterile and lifeless provide the appropriate imagery that works much better here rather than place of magical fantasy and wonder. The fantastical touches when they are used - a giant rocking chair with blades for rockers, the headless messengers of Keikobad, and a glittering golden dancer - are original and strikingly effective.

While individual scenes are impressive, well imagined, visually effective and sung and acted as well as they can be, the challenges of bringing it all into a coherent drama remain. Does Die Frau ohne Schatten really have any deeper meaning, or is it enough to be a broad meditation on birth and existence? There are many other little observations and truths broached here, but it's difficult to see them adding up to something greater. Perhaps it's the fact that it can't be easily pinned down that makes it a great work, one that allows new teams to bring a new vision and new ideas. What is clear is that this production is a fabulous account of an endlessly fascinating opera, and you can't complain about that. With Klaus Mäkelä taking on a considerable challenge for his first new opera production for Aix-en-Provence, the score is explored across its whole range of expression and never less than overwhelming on a deep emotional level. Rather than seek to illuminate or explain its mysteries, Kosky and Mäkelä suggest that Die Frau ohne Schatten is perhaps simpler in its meaning and message than the elaborate scenario suggests.

External links: ARTE Concert, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, La Scène Numérique du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Messager - Fortunio (Paris, 2019)

André Messager - Fortunio

Opéra Comique, Paris - 2019

Louis Langrée, Denis Podalydès, Cyrille Dubois, Anne-Catherine Gillet, Franck Leguérinel, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Philippe-Nicholas Martin, Pierre Derhet, Thomas Dear, Aliénor Feix, Luc Bertin-Hugault, Geoffroy Buffière, Sarah Jouffroy, Laurent Podalydès

Naxos - Blu-ray

I don't think that André Messager is going to make a big comeback in popularity outside of France any time soon, but fortunately they look after the legacy of their opera history at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Like some recent revivals of Messager's French contemporaries and teachers, Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré, his 1907 opera Fortunio proves to be a pleasant surprise, even if it remains very much of its time. Which is nonetheless a time that still saw some major works and significant developments in the world of opera.

Messager's contribution to early 20th century music is perhaps more for his fame as the conductor of the world premiere of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, and for his work in the promoting the Wagnerian repertoire in France. His own compositions may not be quite as groundbreaking in the world of opera as those two composers but when considered alongside the likes of Massenet or even Puccini, who was also composing his greatest works around the same period, Messager's operas are very much in the running in terms of melody, drama and intensity of deep romantic feelings.

While he made a significant contribution to the French opera world then in terms of his conducting and in his appointment as director of the Paris Opera, it doesn't appear that Messager had any great ambitions to progress the world of opera through his own compositions. His was the world of the light comic operetta, but in Fortunio he brings a deceptive lightness of touch to the more through-composed form of the opera-lyrique, with a traditional subject based on Alfred de Musset's 1835 comedy 'Le Chandelier', a work that was guaranteed to delight French audiences of the period.

Directed by Denis Podalydès, the Opéra Comique production very much aligned to a period style and tradition that will bring the best out of the work. In subject and treatment it often reminded me of elements Massenet's Manon and Werther. Fortunio is a naive country boy who has fallen hopelessly in love with Jacqueline, the coquettish wife of his employer, the notary Maître André. She uses his innocent devotion as a way to distract her husband from a much more serious affair that she is carrying on with her lover, the womanising Captain Clavaroche. Even though he becomes aware that he is being misused, Fortunio only grows even more devoted in the hope that his desires and faithfulness might be rewarded, despairing at the same time that he is surely unworthy of such love, a love so consuming that he could die of it or die for it.

Messager's skill is that he pours these sentiments into the most beautiful heartfelt arias, the music soaring in accompaniments as these feelings grow in intensity. Like Werther, if you have singers that can deliver on that the work itself will soar, and that's very much the case here. Cyrille Dubois is wonderful as Fortunio with a gorgeous lyrical range that brings the drama and the opera fully to life. Anne-Catherine Gillet's Jacqueline is also excellent in a tricky role that challenges ones sympathy with her coquettishness being indulged, a plaything for all three men, but there are indications that she doubts her own intentions and feelings, and Gillet captures that ambiguity and uncertainty well. Maître André and Clavaroche are much more caricatures, the foolish cuckolded husband and the womaniser, and both played to the hilt, as they should be in the context by Franck Leguérinel and Jean-Sébastien Bou.

The Opéra Comique of Paris are unparalleled at putting on French light opera of this period and the production here is outstanding, well up to their usual high standards. The musical direction by Louis Langrée is superb, putting a spring in the music, which is full of verve and emotion, and even shows important influences with some Debussy-like impressionistic and atmospheric touches. Eric Ruf's set designs are traditional and period with no ironic subtexts or winks to the audience. It's played for what it is. Although Messager is not a composer I'm at all familiar with, this production and performance here makes a strong case for this opera being worthy of sitting alongside more famous works in the repertoire.

The Blu-ray edition of Fortunio from Naxos is very nice. The High Definition image is clear with a touch of warmth and softness that captures the qualities of the theatrical lighting. The music is likewise warm and detailed, soaring in both Hi-Res LPCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio surround mixes. There are no extra features on the disc, but there's a full tracklist, commentary on the work and a synopsis in the enclosed booklet. The BD50 is all-region, with subtitles in French, English, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Opéra Comique

Rossini - Le Comte Ory (Paris, 2017)

Gioachino Rossini - Le Comte Ory

L'Opéra Comique, Paris - 2017

Louis Langrée, Denis Podalydès, Philippe Talbot, Julie Fuchs, Gaëlle Arquez, Éve-Maud Hubeaux, Patrick Bolleire, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Jodie Devos, Laurent Podalydès, Léo Reynaud

Culturebox - 29th December 2017

There's a general consensus that Rossini's final opera Guillaume Tell is the pinnacle of the composer's relatively short but prolific period as an opera composer (around 40 operas in just 20 years), but there are other lighter and more playful pieces in Rossini's late French works that are equally as accomplished as William Tell. True there may arguably be greater masterpieces among the earlier Italian works like Mosè in Egitto and - who am I to dispute it? - the perennial charm of Il Barbiere di Siviglia - but leaving aside the re-works of Le siege de Corinthe and Moise et Pharaon, the operas composed for a French audience like Il viaggio a Reims and Le comte Ory are remarkable confections that combine a lightness of touch and crowd-pleasing numbers with extraordinarily beautiful and inventive melodic arrangements.

Le comte Ory might not have much of a plot to speak of, but the musical writing is equally as impressive and sophisticated in its expression and arrangements as the work that preceded it, Il viaggio a Reims, an opera that was written for the one-off occasion of the coronation of Charles X in 1825. Believing music too good to be lost (as it would actually be for 150 years or so), Rossini reused much of it for the composition of Le comte Ory. The earlier work had more of a variety show numbers feel to it (Rossini ahead of the game there, much as he was in his development of grand opéra and bel canto, or unforgivable depending on your viewpoint, although he can hardly be blamed for the excesses or banality of others in those fields), so Rossini had to be a little creative in how he reworked the musical material to fit a dramatic plot for Le comte Ory.

You can hardly call the plot sophisticated, as the first half of the opera involves a nobleman, the Count Ory, who disguises himself as a wise hermit so that he can seduce the credulous wives of all the men who have left them alone and unloved and gone off to fight in the Crusades. In the second half, the licentious young Comte Ory puts into play a suggestion that his page Isolier has concocted as a way that might get himself close to the Countess Adèle, sister of the lord of Formoutiers, who he is in love with. Using the page's idea for himself, Ory disguises himself and his men as nuns on a pilgrimage so that they can gain access to the otherwise inaccessible womanly delights that are locked away in the Countess's castle, fearful of the storm outside and looking for comfort.

As a way of providing a variety of colourful scenes for the composer to apply his melodic and effervescent music to however, Le comte Ory gets the job done. And with considerable style and aplomb. It's almost casually brilliant in making it all seem effortlessly light and entertaining. In fact, the work is filled with dramatic and comedic expression, allowing opportunities for individual virtuosity that impress as much as they amuse. The extravagant coloratura and high notes are more often used for comic emphasis and expression of the whirlwind of emotions that are stirred up rather than just being thrown in for the sake of showing-off. Boosted by a capella harmonised ensembles and invigorating choruses, the work transmits that sense of joyful abandon to the audience in the most direct and engaging way that any opera should.

The perceived silliness of the plot however often - in the relatively rare occasions when it is performed - leads modern directors to add a distancing effect (The Met, Pesaro) that actually has the effect of diluting the wholly intentional silliness and comedy of the situation. Why can't they just play the comedy 'straight', so to speak? Well that's what Denis Podalydès does in this wonderfully entertaining production at the Opera Comique (the Paris opera house that knows the real value of light French comic opera) with the result that the work just sparkles with the natural verve and brilliance of its composition. Not to mention that it has a superb cast capable of bringing out all those inherent qualities in the work.

Podalydès doesn't need any clever device or framing structure to make this confection any sweeter. The comedy is in the situation itself and the director just ensures that the performers play them up to the hilt and for all they are worth. Eric Ruf's set for Act I is no more than a country church and Ory is disguised more as an eccentric priest than a hermit, but I guess you might think that the distinction is negligible as far as giving people false hopes in mystical advice to a gullible congregation while serving one's own interests. It functions dramatically, other than the intentional thinness of the count's disguise of course. Act II's set places a group of anxious women huddling from the storm in a rather austere castle interior that protects their virtue from the likes of Count Ory, where rather than a bed, the Countess seems to sleep on a stone tomb.

While the setting heightens the contrasts between the repressed women and libidinous behaviour of Ory and his men, the humour in Act II is mostly derived from men, some of them with beards, all disguised as nuns forgetting to act demurely and in a holy way and instead hiking their skirts up and singing boisterous drinking songs. And if that's not funny, I don't know what is. Well, apart from some ménage-a-trois bedroom farce antics of course and Podalydès direction ensures that it is played entirely for as many laughs as it's possible to get out of the situation. In a nice little twist he also makes the Countess not quite as credulous and submissive as you might think, entering fully into the bed-hopping shenanigans which, with Isolier in a trouser role, already has some gender-ambiguous suggestiveness.

If there's a reason why Le comte Ory is actually considerably funnier in performance than it might sound on paper it's got a lot to do with Rossini's music, and it's given a vigorous outing here by Louis Langrée. Sophistication and precision aren't always a prerequisite for a Rossini musical performance, when sometimes what it needs more is fervour and passion, but Langrée's musical direction enjoys the best of both worlds. There's detail in the colouring of the instrumentation as well as precision, pace and passion in the rhythm and rich melodic flavours of the scenes and the arias. The singing, which is extraordinarily challenging for such a light comic piece, is handled with aplomb and character by Philippe Talbot's Comte Ory, who has a lovely lyrical timbre that carries even to the high notes. Julie Fuchs is a sparkling countess, putting her high notes to good use as exclamations and as a release of repressed emotions. The singing and performances are a joy from all the cast, with Gaëlle Arquez an impressive Isolier and Éve-Maud Hubeaux an irrepressible Dame Ragonde.

Links: L'Opéra Comique, Culturebox

Mozart - Don Giovanni (La Monnaie, 2014 - Webcast)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni

La Monnaie - De Munt, 2014

Ludovic Morlot, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Sir Willard White, Barbara Hannigan, Topi Lehtipuu, Rinat Shaham, Andreas Wolf, Jean-Luc Ballestra, Julie Mathevet

La Monnaie Internet Streaming - December 2014
 
What is both delightful and disappointing about Krzysztof Warlikowski's productions is that they can sometimes take away from a work as much as they give to it. In the case of La Monnaie's Don Giovanni for example, Warlikowski makes it feel fresh, modern and relevant to today rather than being merely a cautionary historical adventure story about a licentious noble. On the other hand, Mozart and Da Ponte's work is already perfect in itself, always giving, always revealing new dimensions and ever open to re-evaluation and reinterpretation. How far should you go in modernising a masterpiece if it risks corrupting what is inherently great about it?

Well, the answer is obvious for many people - leave Don Giovanni well alone and out of the hands of these Regietheater directors - but Warlikowsi is definitely onto something here. Don Giovanni's behaviour should shock a modern audience in the manner that it would have shocked an early 19th century audience, or if shock isn't that easy to come by on stage in the 21st century, it could at least aspire to be as edgy, challenging and contemporary as Steve McQueen's 2011 film 'Shame'. Other directors however have managed to find a way of getting this across the relevance of Mozart's Don Giovanni without having to stretch the credibility of the plot the way Warlkowski's does in attempting to fit it to another work in a different artform with different aims.

Warlikowski however isn't particularly concerned with dramatic naturalism, and since he's working in opera, there's no reason why he should be. He's not concerned that his mise-en-scène doesn't entirely match up with the letter of the libretto or that credibility is damaged when characters act out-of-character. It's not really staged with first-time opera goers in mind, the director, rather like Like Stefan Herheim's productions, assuming that the audience is familiar enough with this work to notice any discrepancies and think about why they are there. It's not entirely high-brow post-modernism either for the audience to be self-aware of the dramatic construct or for the characters to be aware of themselves playing roles. The central question at the heart of Don Giovanni is indeed one of innocence, manipulation and playing of roles, and those themes should still be evident to anyone.

Are the personalities of Don Giovanni really as naive as they seem or are they complicit to a greater or lesser degree in Don Giovanni's deception and self-deception? This isn't entirely a new idea, and it's often established in how Donna Anna behaves during the opening scene - is she raped or has she invited the seducer in? Is she aware of his identity or not? - but Warlikowski's production is indeed shocking in the way he presents it. As usual in a Warlikowski production, the tone is established by a movie prelude that sets out his premise. In this case, with a filmed prelude that almost shot-for-shot replicates the opening scene on the subway in Steve McQueen's 'Shame', the director clearly wants us to relate to Don Giovanni not as a heartless libertine, but in the modern context of an ordinary damaged individual whose only escape from himself is through his self-destructive and all-consuming sex-addiction.

We see another movie when the opera starts, and again, taking a scene from 'Shame], it's a soft-porn movie involving Don Giovanni in an orgy with two women. The film is watched off-stage from a box in the La Monnaie theatre by Don Giovanni and Donna Anna (alongside a glum Leporello), with the Commendatore and a female companion in the box opposite. Don Ottavio's early appearance at one point suggests that even he is not entirely an innocent party, but how much each of those involved know about the identity of Don Giovanni and how much they go along with his activities (which are proudly displayed on the screen for all to see, so they at least can't be unaware of his reputation) isn't entirely clear at this stage. Whether he tries to rape Donna Anna in the theatre box or whether she is willingly taking part in a sex game, the Commendatore thinks he's gone too far and suffers the consequences with a bullet through the head.

Well, if you didn't already know Warlikowski's work by reputation, you very quickly find out from this opening that he's not a director to pull any punches. The same uncompromising position is taken throughout, the settings and locations scarcely resembling those in the original, the lurid colourful lighting, strobing and glitterball lighting effects on shining modern surfaces not even the least bit naturalistic. Strange and sometimes semi-naked figures wander around, some of them part of Don Giovanni's retinue and some of them party-goers, others symbols or apparitions, the killing of the Commendatore evidently biting at his conscience and pushing him over the edge, but there is also a young girl with a skipping rope that it would appear to represent innocence. If La Monnaie's production doesn't quite hit all the necessary points, it seems to me however that it's less to do with Warlikowski's unconventional reading (although I'm sure many would dispute that assessment), and more to do with the musical interpretation.

Using a reduced orchestra but not period instruments, this doesn't sound like a familiar Don Giovanni either. The arrangements and instrumentation as conducted by Ludovic Morlot don't carry the dark tone that is required, but the rhythm that is such a part of Mozart isn't there either. Familiar arias can sound quite different here because of this, but that could also be as much to do with the type of singers cast here. It's not necessarily a bad thing to drop many of the mannerisms and conventions, particularly for a production that wants to cast a fresh eye over the work, but I'm not sure that it even supports Warlikowski's vision for the work. Acting is given prominence and that works to the advantage of the director's intentions, but it means we lose the power of the singing interpretation and delivery to get it across.

Some of the performers can make up for this. Barbara Hannigan, for example, is a little light and high in voice for Donna Anna, but she gives the performance everything (she never does anything less) in a wonderfully unhinged version of her character. Although Don Giovanni obviously remains the central figure of the work, it's Donna Anna who is the key to how he is treated in her pursuit of vengeance. Here, that's less for the murder of her father the Commendatore than from a twisted sex game on her behalf, in which she is just as manipulative and dangerous in her actions and relations with those who come into contact with her. Despite his fate here, Don Ottavio is no fool in this production. He knows that the truth is not so simple "How can I believe that a nobleman could be guilty of so black a crime!" and, as sung by Topi Lehtipuu, his "Dalla sua pace" consequently has an undercurrent of suspicion for Donna Anna's state of mind. He knows what he is dealing with and pays the price, much as Don Giovanni does.

There's a similar commitment to the interpretation from Jean-Sébastien Bou's Don Giovanni, and little of the usual swagger. Although the film 'Shame' is used to suggest a modern response to Don Giovanni's 'condition', it's not over-emphasised elsewhere, but left to Bou to give you pause for thought over culpability and the guilt that drives him to madness, and he does it well. Some of the other performances don't get the balance of acting and singing quite as successfully. Rinat Shaham's Donna Elvira makes a stronger impression than most, and although clearly stretched, she sings the role well, but her character is a little more difficult to fathom. Overall, it's definitely a case of taking with one hand and giving with another in La Monnaie's production, and while you don't take from Mozart lightly, there's still much to admire in Warlikowski's approach that makes you think about the sheer wilful perversity of a work that should indeed inspire such a strong reaction.

La Monnaie's Don Giovanni can be viewed streaming until 27 January from the links below.  The next streaming productions from La Monnaie are Handel's ALCINA and TAMERLANO from 18 Feb to 10 March. 

Links: La Monnaie, RTBF Musiq3

Verrières - The Second Woman

Frédéric Verrières - The Second Woman

Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, 2012

Jean Deroyer, Guillaume Vincent, Jean-Yves Aizic, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Elizabeth Calleo, Jeanne Cherhal, Marie-Eve Munger, Philippe Smith

ARTE Live Web Internet Streaming, 22 December 2012

At first, with long patches of spoken dialogue and little musical accompaniment, it's difficult to establish where The Second Woman lies in the boundaries between theatre, music theatre and opera.  Composed by Frédéric Verrières, the work is inspired by the John Cassavetes film 'Opening Night' (1977), the story of an actress Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands), who goes through a mental breakdown following the accidental death of a fan, drinking heavily and behaving erratically during rehearsals just before the opening night of a play called 'The Second Woman'.  Life and art start mirroring each other for Myrtle to the extent that it becomes difficult to establish where the performance ends and the real person begins.

It's probably appropriate then that Verrières' opera proves similarly hard to define or pin down.  Rather than being set during the rehearsals for a play, The Second Woman is a behind-the-scenes view of the preparations for the first performance of a new opera which is called - just to blur the lines further in a very post-modern way - The Second Woman.  (I wonder what the actual rehearsals for this must have been like - the mind boggles).  The opening scenes therefore take place as a rehearsal for a performance, with a répétiteur at the piano and a director struggling with his temperamental (is there any other kind) artists to block out the dramatic action, get the lighting right and deal with the personal conflicts, animosity and artistic differences between the performers.  Everything comes together eventually for an actual straight performance of the short opera in Act III, which even then is not entirely without incident and disruption.

There is of course a precedent for this in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, the prelude of which outlines a farcical situation that leads to two entirely different operas, one serious and one a comedy, being put on together at the same time due to time restrictions.  There is also some self-reflexive musing on opera and the creative process by Strauss and Hofmannsthal in Capriccio and essentially, the purpose of The Second Woman isn't that far removed from such considerations.  It may all look haphazard, no-one seems to know what they should be doing - least of all the "director" - or at least they all have very different personal views on what they want to bring to the work, but that's how the collaborative creative process works.  It starts from an idea, and if allowed to develop naturally, it can bring in other references and inspirations and acquire personal interpretations that allow it to take unanticipated form and substance.

Since The Second Woman is both an opera and an opera-within-an-opera, it's difficult to make a distinction then between what is original and what is, so to speak, second-hand - although I'm not sure it's even meaningful to make a distinction between them.  The songs in the rehearsals take place to piano accompaniment, and most of the dialogue in the earlier scenes is unaccompanied, but there is also a more modern use of sampled sounds and ambient drone noises, as well as specific operatic references which include mention of Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore and a duet between the "cantatrice" and her coloratura sister (the opera's woman-in-the-mirror equivalent to the dead fan in 'Opening Night') that is re-worked from the 'Viens, Mallika' duet in Delibes' Lakmé.  Outside of the rehearsals, the actual opera (or "opera") is made up of a patchwork of different styles and references that takes in folk, pop, Steve Reich-like minimalist passages and even Baroque stylisations.

In between the rehearsals and the actual opera, and through its specific layering of operatic and other musical references, The Second Woman does manage to peel back the layers of its characters, or at least that of the singer, the cantatrice.  Born into an artistic family, her father a tenor singing Verdi and Puccini, she and her sister would create their own operas, and her latter-day personal identity crisis seems to come about from being regarded in her childhood as "nothing but a voice".  It's little wonder then that the crisis that develops in The Second Woman can only be expressed in musical terms.

Director Guillaume Vincent has his work cut out trying to unravel these layers in a way that makes it comprehensible to an audience, as does American soprano Elizabeth Calleo as the singer, but they achieve this remarkably well, slipping fluidly between the musical styles, between English dialogue and French singing (with some Italianate references), between the humour and the drama, the reminiscence and reverie, the rehearsal and the opera, and the actuality of the real performance.  The audience at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris certainly found the whole playing up of the artistic temperaments and personal differences very amusing, but there was a wit and intelligence to the music also, directed from the back of the stage - curtain after curtain falling along with the layers of the drama - by Jean Deroyer.

Broadcast live via Internet Streaming, The Second Woman is still available for viewing on the ARTE Live Web site.  The work is performed mainly in French and English, but there are no subtitles provided.