Julie Boulianne

For Theodora, a princess who has converted to Christianity, earthly existence means nothing compared to the promise of eternal salvation. She disobeys the command issued by the Roman Emperor to worship Jupiter, preferring instead to die in the name of freedom of religion. The globally celebrated countertenor and Handel specialist Bejun Mehta debuts as a conductor at MusikTheater an der Wien with the La Folia Barockorchester.

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“Everyone steals according to one’s position in society.” A social critique, a credo to live by, and a recipe for the hilarious satire of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Brigands! The Opéra Comique’s rollicking 2011 production took full advantage of the talents of stage directors Macha Makeïeff and Jérôme Deschamps (members of the wildly successful French comedy troupe Les Deschiens) and the accomplished music director François-Xavier Roth.

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Don Giovanni prides itself in being a dramma giocoso. Not an easy expression to translate, given how starkly contradictory the terms would appear to be. But dig below the surface and you are plunged into a delightful swirl of ambiguities. Nothing here is set in stone: the libertinage is passionate, but couples meet and part. Fate plays tricks with masks, right up until the final challenge.

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Berlioz’s epic masterpiece retells the magnificent saga of the aftermath of the Trojan War and the exploits of Aeneas. Rising tenor Bryan Hymel, in his Met debut, stars as the hero charged by the gods with the founding of the city of Rome. Susan Graham is Dido, Queen of Carthage, who becomes Aeneas’s lover, and Deborah Voigt sings Cassandra, the Trojan princess whose warnings about the impending destruction of Troy go unheeded. Francesca Zambello’s atmospheric production, featuring choreography by Doug Varone, is led by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi.

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Gluck’s gripping adaptation of the ancient Greek myth is vividly brought to life by a stellar cast in Stephen Wadsworth’s atmospheric production. Oreste is driven by the Furies to atone for killing his mother Clytemnestre. When he and his companion Pylade are shipwrecked on the island of Tauride, the king Thoas demands they be sacrificed. At the center of the drama is Iphigénie, Oreste’s long-lost sister. Forced to live among her enemies, she holds the lives of the captives in her hands—unaware that one of them is her brother. (Iphigénie en Tauride is performed in an adaptation of the 1779 Paris version edited by Gerhard Croll, by arrangement with Bärenreiter.)

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Deposed by the genius Robin-Luron and replaced by the despotic and populist King Carrot, the leader of the vegetables, Fridolin XXIV of Krokodyne, faces all kinds of zany and wonderful adventures: from the spells of the witch Coloquinte to his encounter with the enchanter Quiribi and Rosée-du-Soir. They help him regain his throne and overthrow the tyrannical Carrot. A burlesque nightmare.

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