Both White Star and Cunard liners originally departed from Liverpool, but Southampton gradually emerged as an ideal location due to unusually long periods of high water. Together, the two companies form the lineage of what is simply known today as Cunard, with its fleet of “Four Queens”: Queen Mary 2, sometimes described as the last ocean liner, on which I sailed across the Atlantic in 2019, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth, and the young, modern Queen Anne, my home for the week.

Cunard prides itself on maintaining a high standard of service, inspired by the glorious time of Atlantic crossings. Although the three classes familiar to anyone who has seen Titanic are gone, there are still areas reserved for Queens Grill or Princess Grill passengers, who also enjoy slightly more comfortable accommodation. Table-side experiences such as Sole Meunière or Crêpes Suzette are still offered in the Grills, where the cheese platter comes with picturesque “accoutrements.” A dress code is still enforced in the evenings with a little more insistence than on other ships, and Afternoon Tea remains a staple of the so-called White Star service.

Helmed by one of the very few female captains, Queen Anne incorporates the latest technological advances in terms of energy efficiency and waste management. A “behind the scenes” tour on a sea day allowed me to witness once again the challenges involved in providing a safe, smooth and enjoyable voyage to 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew. The painstakingly detailed logistics at work in the engine room, on the navigation deck, in the restaurants and bars or in the entertainment venues, for example, offered an eye-opening lesson in organisation and coordination.

A first stop in Getxo allowed me to embark on an excursion to the charming seaside city of San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque), with its picturesque sandy beaches and imposing villas, some of them originally built by wealthy English industrialists. The simple pleasure of entering a random store to buy a succulent bocadillo de jamón was enough to make braving the formidable humidity worthwhile.

The next stop, A Coruña, afforded the opportunity to discover Santiago de Compostela, its many pilgrims and delicious almond pastries. The Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, beautifully designed by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, offered a riveting retrospective of German artist Alexandra Ranner, whose constructed architectural spaces, vaguely reminiscent of Thomas Demand’s work, came across as strangely oppressive.

The final Spanish stop in Gijón provided the perfect opportunity to discover Centro Niemeyer, a unique arts complex designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in struggling, post-industrial Avilés. The project was marred by accusations of misappropriation and mismanagement, and the hope of duplicating the “Bilbao effect” has so far failed to materialise. The curvy building, however, remains an awe-inspiring sight. An exhibition by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, who has been documenting humanity’s transformation of natural landscapes, in this instance through its relationship with water, proved fascinating in the tension between its extraordinary aesthetic beauty and something approaching photojournalism.

Finally, a stop in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin felt like a trip back into history. During the golden age of transatlantic travel, Cunard’s great liners, including Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, would make a stop in Cherbourg after leaving Southampton on their way to New York, hence the spectacular Art Deco terminal designed by René Levavasseur, also the designer of several prominent buildings in the city centre. An immersive VR experience allows visitors to relive the time when trains ran directly into the terminal, allowing for a mostly seamless transfer to the waiting liner.

At local art outpost Le Point du jour, an exhibition titled Fabriquer un Jardin included ongoing research by Maria Thereza Alves to trace non-indigenous plant species in port cities where cargo ships would unload seed-carrying ballast after empty runs, illustrating the unexpected botanical consequences of maritime trade.

Trains play a central part in Noël Coward’s play Still Life (1936), and an even greater one in David Lean’s unforgettable film adaptation, Brief Encounter (1945), starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. Onboard entertainment included a staging of Emma Rice’s Brief Encounter, a play with music I’d already seen in London in 2008. Unfortunately, Rachmaninoff’s hauntingly romantic music only plays a secondary role, but the inclusion of Coward’s most heartbreaking song, “Mad About the Boy”, was devastatingly effective.

The total solar eclipse on 12 August was the highlight of the week. All passengers were able to observe it under ideal conditions thanks to the ship’s carefully chosen position to chase a clear sky and an open horizon. Additional intellectual fodder had been provided by highly enjoyable conferences, another Cunard hallmark. Talks by Commander Susan Kilrain, who piloted the Space Shuttle on two occasions, and by Dr Elizabeth Cunningham, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, turned out to be particularly enlightening. Who knew the Moon is gradually moving away from the Earth, meaning that total solar eclipses will cease to exist in roughly 1.2 billion years?

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

A “young” country born in 1964, whose name combines the first three letters of its constituent lands, continental Tanganyika and insular Zanzibar, plus the ending -ia.

Stepping out of a modern Boeing 777 at a small, somewhat improbable, international airport and being confronted straight away with otherworldly scenery dotted with strangely shaped acacias.

Red, iron-rich earth everywhere, which turns into a stubbornly insinuating dust that finds its way onto absolutely everything — seats, luggage, clothes, face, hair.

A still developing country with uneven infrastructure but a perfectly organised tourism industry — from the cozy tented camps with all modern comforts in the wildest areas to the ubiquitous and seemingly unbreakable safari-equipped Toyota SUVs with their devoted, clever guides, always ready to help colleagues who have encountered difficulties.

Chinese and Indian investments aplenty; the complex ownership of the country’s mineral wealth — gold, tanzanite, diamonds — hinting at a subtler continuation of older economic relationships.

The ever-present Maasai, one of the region’s most recognisable peoples with their traditional red garments. Some of them still live a semi-nomadic pastoral lifestyle while others have elected to settle in more urban settings.

The universal and probably meaningless tourist greeting “jambo jambo!”, and the appreciative smiles when one answers instead with the more idiomatic Swahili “habari?” The almost-as-frequent “hakuna matata!” (no problems!), known to every visitor thanks to The Lion King.

Wildlife everywhere, in the Tarangire National Park and its giant baobab trees, the Ngorongoro Crater and its pink flamingos, and of course the seemingly boundless Serengeti, where I was lucky to witness the annual northward migration of the wildebeest, involving a risky crossing of the River Mara.

Watching huge herds of wildebeest act as interconnected entities in their determined movement, hesitating for hours before choosing a crossing point until one animal decides it’s time and jumps into the water where crocodiles lurk, leading the entire herd to follow in one irresistible movement.

Seeing the sun rise over the Mara from a balloon slowly gliding over endless territories where thousands, perhaps millions, of animals go on with their lives unbothered — well worth the 4am call.

Among the week’s encounters: termites everywhere, lions hiding from the sun (including a majestic male), leopards lounging in trees, a cheetah and a jackal concealed in tall grass, hyenas (particularly striking when caught in headlights before sunrise), debonair elephants, bulky buffaloes, giraffes, idle zebras, curious baboons, cheeky monkeys, graceful Thomson’s gazelles and impalas, earthbound ostriches, smelly hippopotami, adorable warthogs, scheming mongooses, a rabbit, circling vultures and opportunistic marabou storks… and the incomparable secretary bird. I’m probably forgetting a few. Among the so-called “big five,” only the rhinoceros remained elusive.

Echoes of Karen Blixen and Beryl Markham, whose experiences I can now relate to, albeit in admittedly different conditions of comfort and sanitation.

Discussing The Band’s Visit with an Israeli family from Petah Tikva while enjoying a surprisingly tasty Full English breakfast in the wild. Reminding myself that The Secretary Bird is the title of a pretty successful 1968 English play which failed to reach Broadway but enjoyed a dozen productions in Paris as Le Canard à l’orange.

Finding it strangely difficult to say goodbye to Lukumay, my youthful, personable and knowledgeable Maasai guide, who constantly went above and beyond to make my visit unforgettable, even when a dysfunctional checkpoint meant we had to dramatically cut short our visit to Ngorongoro.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 25 July

To Birmingham by train

Birmingham, Alexandra Theatre • Like The Lost Boys (1987), recently made into a Broadway musical, The Karate Kid (1984) features a single mother relocating to California with her children to start a new life in unfamiliar surroundings. The former involved an encounter with vampires, the latter with bullies — and the help of a friendly and gently mischievous karate master. Someone evidently thought The Karate Kid deserved a musical adaptation and chose the regional UK route to try out a show advertised as Broadway-bound. I watched the film for the first time on the train to Birmingham and enjoyed the (mostly) personable characters and a streamlined, no-nonsense plot. The stage adaptation, for all its visual flair and Broadway-style scale, never quite answers the obvious question of why this story needed to be sung, especially with such a bland, unremarkable score. Whether it ever reaches Broadway is anyone’s guess.

Birmingham, The Rep • Remarkably, seeing Sweeney Todd for the 40^th time brought not the slightest trace of weariness. The Birmingham Rep’s production achieved the impressive feat of preserving the show’s impact with only eleven actors and seven musicians. A blindfolded incarnation of Justice, dominating the set, provided a perfect image for the plot’s moral ambiguity. Ramin Karimloo gave a blood-curdling performance in the title role, among a first-rate cast that proved remarkable in the tricky multi-voice songs. Meow Meow’s Mrs. Lovett navigated her vocal limitations with the savvy of a seasoned performer and gave a convincing performance despite a handful of mixed-up lines and lyrics. I was particularly impressed by Karimloo’s repartee when Mrs. Lovett swapped two lines in “A Little Priest” and he instantly adjusted his own responses so that the exchange still made perfect sense.

Sunday 26 July

To London by train

London, Charing Cross Theatre • One suspects that the decision to turn the 1945 play Dark of the Moon into a musical may owe something to the prominent role it plays as the play-within-the-play in Stranger Things: First Shadow. A kind of gender-reversed take on The Little Mermaid, Dark of the Moon involves the encounter between “witch people” and “regular people,” raising questions of acceptance and fate. Probably the most visually accomplished production I’ve seen in the tiny Charing Cross Theatre, this musical’s heavy gothic aesthetic nevertheless soon wore thin. Fortunately, by Act II I found myself caring about the characters and once again hooked by their fates.

London, Royal Festival Hall • This Proms concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) under Kazuki Yamada brought together three works of particular interest. Francis Poulenc’s Sinfonietta (1948), originally a BBC commission to celebrate the second anniversary of the Third Programme (the forerunner of today’s BBC Radio 3), exudes the French composer’s customary charming melodic and harmonic unpredictability. Then, the same composer’s Concerto for Two Pianos afforded me the opportunity to see the flamboyantly energetic Jussen brothers play what has become one of their signature pieces — their recording of the concerto stands unmatched. Closing the programme, John Adams’s Harmonium, first performed in the UK by the CBSO in Birmingham under Simon Rattle in 1987, filled the hall with a profound sense of poetry, born of the score’s meticulously calibrated minimalism and enhanced by Yamada’s sensitive handling of the massive choral forces.

Monday 27 July

Back to Paris by train

Paris, UGC Maillot • I am not an easy audience for comedies, yet I laughed heartily throughout De la Comédie-Française, a joyful account of the three hectic hours leading up to an opening night at the Comédie-Française. The use of Macbeth as the play-within-the-film added further layers: the Comédie-Française is the so-called House of Molière, while Macbeth itself is the object of a well-known theatrical superstition against uttering its name backstage. All parts were played by members of the Comédie-Française, from the doorman to the make-up artist, demonstrating a refreshing capacity for self-deprecation.

Thursday 30 July

Paris, UGC Maillot • I was not familiar with Hunter S. Thompson’s concept of “gonzo journalism”, but I quickly grew tired of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and its relentless drug-induced descent into a surreal parallel reality, fuelled by the lingering traumas of the Vietnam War. The actors are uniformly excellent, from the two headliners, Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, to the myriad secondary roles — including a youthful Tobey Maguire — but, for all of Terry Gilliam’s visual acumen, the avalanche of outrageous situations and encounters failed to engage me. I was amused by the unexpected appearances of Debbie Reynolds and Barbra Streisand as hallucinatory embodiments of American popular culture, while the soundtrack offered its own surprises, from “My Favourite Things” during the opening sequence to 42nd Street’s “You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me”.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 18 July

To Manchester by plane

Named after the hugely successful Victorian engineer whose bequest founded it, the Whitworth houses a variety of art exhibitions open to the public free of charge. Its original red-brick building was complemented in 2015 by a glass-and-stainless-steel annex by MUMA (McInnes Usher McKnight Architects), which feels like an organic extension and opens up the building to the adjoining park.

Manchester, Opera House • I was thinking of the late Josh Grisetti, who replaced John Cariani as Nigel Bottom on Broadway, as I approached the UK premiere of Something Rotten!, a 2015 Broadway musical initially scheduled to open at the Birmingham Rep in 2021 before being derailed by Covid. Playing to a standing-room-only audience, this West End-scale production eschewed Casey Nicholaw’s original staging and choreography while assembling a top-notch cast to realise the full potential of a show that comes across as a love letter to the theatre. But beyond the avalanche of in-jokes, the show never lost sight of its own warm-hearted story.

I was particularly happy that the Minstrel had the range to do full justice to the opening song, “Welcome to the Renaissance.” Much to my delight, the audience clearly got the most obvious theatrical winks, even as some subtler ones kept jumping out at me, like the intro to “Her Eyes” from The Producers creeping into the score during a romantic turn. There was even premature applause when the company revealed their “mugshots” in full A Chorus Line fashion, just as in that show. Cory English’s Nostradamus looked like he had simply kept his wig from Back to the Future.

One line from the show — “My religion is theatre” — deserves to join 42nd Street’s “Think of musical comedy, the most glorious words in the English language!” in every avid theatregoer’s creed.

Sunday 19 July

Manchester, Royal Exchange Theatre • Curiously, the two musicals playing in Manchester had opened on Broadway within three days of each other in 2015. Fun Home, the musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel, is not an easy piece because of its emotionally demanding subject matter and Jeanine Tesori’s thorny score. The in-the-round space of the Royal Exchange Theatre lent this finely judged production an intimacy akin to that at New York’s Circle in the Square. Sadly, the audience was a little sparse for this performance.

Back to Paris by plane

Tuesday 21 July

Paris, UGC Maillot • I expected Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey to focus on the epic at the expense of the human. Nolan went the other way… and the result, for me, was a film lacking both pace and dramatic intensity, set to an exasperating soundtrack that constantly called attention to itself in its obvious will to sound different. There seemed to be a determined effort to downplay the production’s scale through camera placement and movement, subdued lighting, limited crowds, and sets that sometimes looked like models. I remain unconvinced that such an urbane, almost debonair treatment can do justice to one of the founding myths of Western civilisation.

Thursday 23 July

Paris, UGC Maillot • It had been almost exactly 35 years since I had seen Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise. The final scene had stayed with me indelibly, but the rest had grown rather fuzzy. Had it stood the test of time? Absolutely. Arguably one of the best road movies ever made, Thelma & Louise demonstrates how powerful a script can be when it charts the emotional journey of its protagonists without ever losing a beat or softening its focus. The evocative soundtrack also plays an essential role in building towards one of cinema’s most unforgettable final images.

Friday 24 July

Paris, Studio Hébertot • I only knew William Gibson’s 1958 Broadway play Two For the Seesaw through its 1973 musical adaptation Seesaw, so this opportunity to see this small-scale production intrigued me. The original French-language adaptation by Louise de Vilmorin, titled Deux sur la balançoire, opened in Paris as early as 1959, starring no less than Jean Marais and Annie Girardot. There have been a large number of revivals since, including a 1985 production starring Nicole Garcia and Jacques Weber in Jean-Loup Dabadie’s then new adaptation, which has remained the standard French-language text to this day.

The two-character play (three counting the constantly ringing phone) couldn’t feel more remote from the exuberance of the Cy Coleman-scored musical, and its appeal depends mostly on the chemistry between its two actors. In a sparse, basic set in the unprepossessing Studio Hébertot, Charles-Édouard Durot’s brooding Jerry and Ophélie Brett’s good-girl Clara, with the welcome help of a well-chosen song list for the scene changes, managed to infuse some depth and emotion into Gibson’s gossamer tale of how two lonely hearts don’t necessarily make a happy couple.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 11 July

To Zurich by plane

Zurich, Opernhaus • Built around the ambiguous contrast between carnality and supposedly pure, poetic love, Tannhäuser isn’t an easy piece to warm up to. This stylised production by Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson didn’t help, intent as it seemed on hitting the dramatic nail squarely on its head rather than giving the plot space to breathe. Wagner’s voice hadn’t yet reached its glorious and revolutionary maturity by 1845. Despite the obvious care he brought to his conducting, Tugan Sokhiev seemed to drag the score back to a conventional Romanticism instead of showcasing its revolutionary traits. The cast provided strong performances, dominated by Christian Gerhaher’s transfixing Wolfram.

Sunday 12 July

Back to Paris by plane

Monday 13 July

Paris, Opéra-Bastille • What if Violetta Valéry were an influencer, monetising her image on social media? That’s the convincing premise behind Simon Stone’s take on La Traviata, the ultimate tale of “love cannot stop death.” The two giant screens came close to dwarfing the human drama; fortunately, the set designer also created a tech-free space that needed only a spin of the — incredibly noisy — turntable to emerge. The cast and orchestra performed dutifully under Marta Gardolińska’s guidance, but there was no escaping a slight feeling of routine. Perhaps that was inevitable: it was, after all, the last performance of the season, and the heat outside was excruciating.

Tuesday 14 July

To Basel by train

Riehen (Basel), Fondation Beyeler • I harbour mixed feelings about art that requires explanations before it can be fully appreciated, and Pierre Huyghe certainly falls into that category. Had I not grabbed the visitor’s booklet at the entrance of this exhibition, I would have missed a significant portion of it. Having made that effort, I felt invigorated by the open questions Huyghe’s art raised, like a series of provocative philosophical essays. As always when that happens, I felt giddy when I realised that I had already seen Untitled (Human Mask), a film about a macaque wearing an eerily lifelike Noh-style girl’s mask and wandering through an empty restaurant in Fukushima.

Basel, Kunstmuseum • Helen Frankenthaler belonged to that post-war generation of American artists who opened up possibilities by rethinking art as a manifestation of inner urges and impulses rather than theorising about technique or subject matter. This retrospective was an eye-opener: if I had already crossed paths with Frankenthaler’s work, I had almost no recollection of it. The evolution of her treatment of colour and texture proved a fascinating discovery. For some reason, I was particularly drawn to the works inspired by older masterpieces, like Monet’s Water Lilies — an approach similar to Gerhard Richter’s engagement with Titian’s Annunciation.

Back to Paris by train

Wednesday 15 July

Paris, Théâtre Rive Gauche • As the audience was waiting for the curtain to go up on the musical Paris is Magique, a few bars of cutesy musette accordion played over the auditorium’s loudspeakers in an endless loop. The first couple of times were cute; the rest was torture, an apt introduction for a show probably aimed at tourists — as the English and Japanese-language supertitles might suggest — mixing first-, second-, and third-degree humour with unrestrained randomness. The canned music and audience participation were painful; the revue postures and silhouettes seemed to imply that at least part of the cast came from the dying world of Lido-like shows; a microphone incident and the frequently out-of-sync supertitles brought me back to the thankfully bygone time when no French production could go without technical issues. I had a hard time getting my head around the fact that a scene clearly written to get the audience back in the mood after an intermission was performed despite the lack of one. There were, however, a few pleasant scenes… but none so satisfying as when one of the performers started playing the trumpet live.

Thursday 16 July

Paris, UGC Maillot • Though it wears its Hitchcockian influences on its sleeve — not least because of its Bernard Herrmann score arranged by Elmer Bernstein — Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991) is one of those movies in which the director’s hand is ever-present, with the camera constantly drawing attention to itself through frantic movements. The Swatch Twinphone in Danielle’s bedroom or Kersek’s cocktails of Jim Beam bourbon and Pepto-Bismol are delicious period details. Touchingly, Scorsese invited Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck, the two male stars of the 1962 Cape Fear, to appear in small roles. The encounter between Robert De Niro and Juliette Lewis, rich in sexual innuendos, in the fairy-tale setting of an empty theatre is perhaps the most intense scene. At one point, De Niro, almost singing, says “I think we’re alone now” — the title of a Tommy James song whose opening lines seem eerily appropriate: “Children behave / That’s what they say when we’re together / And watch how you play / They don’t understand.”

Friday 17 July

Paris, Bourse de Commerce Pinault • A guided tour of a few select works from the current exhibition, Clair-Obscur, was a fitting wrap-up to the week. One of the highlights was coming across Pierre Huyghe’s Mind’s Eye (L), a cousin to Mind’s Eye (FL), which I’d seen three days earlier at Fondation Beyeler. The two sculptures, inspired by recordings of brain waves, are designed to evolve under the viewer’s eyes, but that movement is far too slow to be noticeable.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 4 July

To Munich by plane

Munich, Staatsoper • Tobias Kratzer’s approach to Wagner’s Die Walküre offered the best possible argument for the work’s enduring power by confronting it with a simple, contemporary world. The gods may have kept the trappings of the Ring’s original imagery, but the situations and characters appeared entirely mundane, in the best possible way. Kratzer brilliantly emphasised the key dramatic turns, revealing the work’s multilayered density, and made some choices I had rarely seen before, such as opening Act II on the set from Act I — a solution that, once seen, seems so obvious that I will now question every staging that does otherwise. Much was happening on stage, which made a welcome change from more static approaches that seem to negate opera’s theatrical dimension. This vision was served by a committed and splendid cast, as well as a fiery interpretation from the pit. The few orchestral lapses in Act I were quickly forgotten as Vladimir Jurowski drove the performance with mounting intensity.

Sunday 5 July

Munich, Museum Brandhorst • Located within a strikingly colourful building designed by Sauerbruch Hutton, Museum Brandhorst houses a remarkable collection of contemporary art assembled by Anette Brandhorst, an heiress to the Henkel fortune. The high point of the visit for me was discovering the two Cy Twombly series, Rosen and Lepanto, the latter installed in a spectacular, purpose-built polygonal gallery.

Back to Paris by plane

Tuesday 7 July

Paris, Fondation Louis Vuitton • Bernard Arnault spared no expense organising this concert as a tribute to the recently deceased Frank Gehry, the creative force behind the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s iconic building. Given the modest size of the auditorium, bringing together the Philharmonia Orchestra, Thomas Adès, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuja Wang and Daniel Lozakovich on the same evening can reasonably be described as an indulgence. The programme was a mixed bag, but the second half, after the orchestra had taken the stage, moved me more: Adès’s thrilling Shanty, followed by Sibelius’s Violin concerto and Symphony No. 7, filled me with elation and tightened my throat.

Thursday 9 July

Paris, Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier • This French-language production of Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea (in the Julien Gracq version) left me so utterly unengaged that I was led to ponder: does theatre lose its potency if it doesn’t appear to engage with our world, to resonate with our everyday experience? Michael Thalheimer’s staging, for all its visual economy and tragic intensity, kept me at bay, and none of the wonderful performances could draw me in.

Friday 10 July

Paris, Théâtre de la Ville • For a few minutes, Hofesh Shechter’s Theatre of Dreams unfolded like a euphoric, rapid-fire cinematic hallucination: travelling curtains and ethereal lights created a succession of visual fragments, some humorous, others mysterious or ominous. And then the novelty wore off, and complacency settled in, culminating in an ill-advised moment of audience participation. Echoes from previous Shechter works crept in. Inspiration is a fickle companion.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 27 June

To London by train

London, Shaftesbury Theatre • “It gets old,” the character based on Gary Coleman told the audience after being introduced. Maybe it does, but Avenue Q still holds its ground pretty well after nearly 25 years. So what if a line had to be added to explain that a mixtape worked pretty much like a playlist. This production at the Shaftesbury Theatre (soon to be renamed the Judi Dench) made me long for the time when irreverence and a crazy imagination were the driving forces behind new Broadway musicals. Avenue Q is smart, sharp, and doesn’t feel it has to soften its edges — because at its core, it’s a lesson in kindness and sweet melancholy. I’ll always be grateful to that show for introducing me to the concept of Schadenfreude and for making “purpose” a code word for my friend É. and me.

London, Barbican Theatre • Choosing High Society might seem a tad risky to continue the Barbican’s seemingly endless Summer series of Cole Porter musicals: adapted many years after Charles Walters’s 1956 film, it has always been considered a flimsy property and has never, to my knowledge, been presented to the public twice in the exact same form, drawing more or less liberally from the Cole Porter catalogue. I enjoyed the production a lot more than I expected in spite of its bulky unit set and the sense that each scene was frantically eager to segue into the next big musical number, performed with almost manic energy. There are worse ways to stage Cole Porter, though — as last year’s Kiss Me, Kate! clearly demonstrated — so there was a good opportunity to appreciate the sophisticated score, witty lyrics, and committed cast — with a special mention for the utterly charming Julian Ovenden. The reduced orchestrations worked best when they stayed away from the over-amplified string section and relied on flute and harp… not forgetting a strong brass section, a recurring staple of British pit bands.

Sunday 28 June

London, Hayward Gallery • Anish Kapoor’s use of the pigment Vantablack, which absorbs almost all light, defied perceptions of depth and relief and reminded me of what James Turrell achieves, paradoxically, with light. Contemporary art often leads us to question whether things are as they seem, a question Kapoor also raises with his large-scale mirrored steel structures on the terraces of the Hayward Gallery, which distort, invert and disorient. The colour red dominated the rest of the exhibition, turning religious sacrifices, bloody human viscera and overinflated blobs into a strangely compelling visual continuum.

London, The Other Palace • The musical Hot Mess might sound a little too clever for its own sake, staging the love story and eventual separation between Earth and Hugh Mankind (say it aloud). It would be easy for such an allegory to turn out preachy or awkward. And yet, the lightness of touch and carefully calibrated goofiness that writer Jack Godfrey brought to it made for an unexpectedly enjoyable performance, while allowing the protagonists to find a reassuringly happy ending despite going their separate ways. Maybe there’s hope after all.

Back to Paris by train

Monday 29 June

Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées • András Schiff insists that his only motivation is to look deep into a composer’s soul. And yet, for this all-Schubert recital, he once again designed a programme that was unmistakably his own, both in its structure — grouping works into uninterrupted sequences — and in its serious, methodical — some might say dry — approach to interpretation. Not to mention his piano, clad in what looked like gleaming walnut burl.

Tuesday 30 June

Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées • A few days after this joyous performance of Porgy & Bess by the Orchestre Lamoureux under Quentin Hindley with the Ensemble vocal Voix d’Outre-mer, I was still humming — no, singing — “Oh Lawd, I'm On My Way” at every opportunity. Mounting this show is a formidable endeavour, but the effort paid off. Syncopation doesn’t always come naturally to French performers, yet here the orchestra and cast often seemed to be swinging together with remarkable abandon. Playing Maria, Axelle Saint-Cirel was immediately recognisable as the mezzo-soprano whose rendition of La Marseillaise from the roof of the Grand Palais became one of the defining images of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Thursday 2 July

Paris, UGC Maillot • I experienced a slight sense of déjà-vu in Antonin Baudry’s J’écris ton nom, the second instalment of La Bataille De Gaulle — the truth-or-dare dealings with the British and the Americans, the courageous war hero leading his men into a seemingly hopeless battle, the everyday people behind the Résistance, the finely calibrated soundtrack. Yet I easily let myself be drawn into this meticulously crafted movie, captivated by its inspirational scale, seduced by its cast, and charmed by its deftly timed humour.

Friday 3 July

To Aix-en-Provence by train

Aix-en-Provence, Grand Théâtre de Provence • I hadn’t seen Nina Stemme since her Kostelnička in Stockholm in 2024. Her towering presence as the Amme in Barrie Kosky’s production of Die Frau ohne Schatten for the Aix-en-Provence Festival confirmed how well she is suited to those formidable maternal figures whose seemingly good intentions trigger tragic consequences. The performance also marked Klaus Mäkelä’s debut in an opera pit. Together with the Orchestre de Paris and a fine vocal cast, he infused iron-hot intensity into a score which oscillates between the rawness of Salome and the charm of Der Rosenkavalier. Kosky managed to bring out the philosophical poetry of the piece without hammering the “get a child to validate your life” message, which has not aged well. I was amazed by several set pieces, including a dye shop which looked as though it could have been Fagin’s hideout in Oliver Twist.

Transportation challenges meant that I was only able to attend Acts II and III.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 20 June

To Linz by plane and train

Linz, Musiktheater

This local, German-language production of Bernstein and Comden & Green’s Wonderful Town proved every bit as enjoyable as previous Linz productions. The set occasionally betrayed budget constraints, but the wink to the Fifth Avenue Coach Company was a nice touch. The Bruckner Orchester Linz (!) was on fire, and the comic momentum never flagged… in no small part thanks to a larger-than-life performance by Sarah Schütz, a worthy Germanic counterpart to Rosalind Russell or Donna Murphy.

Sunday 21 June

Back to Paris by train and plane

Paris, UGC Maillot

Steven Spielberg remains a master of staging large-scale spectacle. However, both the script and the visual grammar for Disclosure Day felt like a haphazard mismatch of regurgitated ideas drawn from his own canon — or from others’. Thankfully, the A-list cast injected much-needed psychological tension into what very nearly turned into a bland gumbo.

Monday 22 June

Paris, UGC Maillot

Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers relied so intensely on the chemistry between its two main characters — including the formidable and seemingly eternal Ian McKellen — that it almost came across as theatrical rather than cinematic fare. The screenplay’s predictability was balanced by the elegance of its prose. Seeing James Corden as the scheming, ungrateful son added to my enjoyment.

Wednesday 24 June

Paris, Théâtre du Rond-Point

Thomas Bernhard borrowed the title of his play Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh from Goethe’s Wandrers Nachtlied, also set to music by Schubert and used by Georges Perec and Eugen Helmlé for a radiophonic experiment. Jean-François Sivadier’s French-language adaptation, titled Tout est calme dans les hauteurs, proved to be a feast of dark irony and biting satire. Nicolas Bouchaud laid bare the monstrous nature of the overbearing, pontificating, self-quoting author, surrounded by a posse of clueless sycophants, all blissfully unaware of their responsibilities to history and art.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 13 June

To Vienna by train

Vienna, Musikverein

The Wiener Philharmoniker’s 10th Abonnementkonzert distinguished itself through its unusual choice of repertoire. None of the works on the programme could be described as concert staples, and the fact that the orchestra did not rely on routine made the performances captivating — especially in the Poulenc.

Vienna, Musikverein (later)

I wasn’t convinced Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri would hold my interest, and indeed I often found myself observing the many performers who crammed the limited stage of the Musikverein to avoid drifting away. Some of the more expressionistic pages nevertheless caught me by surprise, and I ultimately found exaltation in the luminous, rapturous finale.

Sunday 14 June

Back to Paris by plane

Two major institutions devoted to contemporary art now stand a short distance apart in the very centre of Paris. The Bourse du Commerce – Pinault Collection opened in 2021 after architect Tadao Andō transformed the site with his usual flair. I focused my short visit on the current exhibition in the rotunda, one of Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya’s “fog sculptures,” an intoxicating, immersive sensory experiment called Cloud #07156. Minutes away, the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art contemporain had just relocated into the historic building of Le Louvre des Antiquaires, stunningly reïmagined by Jean Nouvel, who anchored it firmly in the site’s history and opened it up to its surroundings. The opening exhibition, meant to convey the breadth of the foundation’s endeavours, offered a varied selection of works and demonstrated the galleries’ versatility through their ingenious system of mobile floors.

Tuesday 16 June

Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

I regularly test my love-and-hate relationship with baroque music by attending the occasional concert, this one prompted by the appeal of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and the pleasure of benefiting from my friend K.’s encyclopaedic knowledge of all things historically informed. I spent most of the evening brutally bored, even during the Stabat Mater, which managed to be not funereal enough and painfully slow at the same time. When voices and instruments resonate so briefly, there is no excuse for languid tempos. A brief encore demonstrated that, at the right pace, the mood set in naturally. Thankfully, my brain rescued itself from boredom by spending a good portion of the performance trying to remember the name of the theorbo.

Thursday 18 June

Paris, Auditorium de Radio France

At the end of this uneven performance — which only took off during the symphony — Michel Orier, Radio France’s Director of Music, bestowed the title of Conductor Emeritus upon a visibly glowing Riccardo Muti, nearly 85 years old, and probably a little too proud that he can still walk to the podium unaided. Muti, however, spoke from the heart when reminiscing about his 45-year relationship with the orchestra, which Orier described as a compagnonnage — a long-standing artistic fellowship. Muti also made touching remarks about two musicians retiring that very evening, including the outstanding flautist Michel Moraguès. When a musician retires, part of their legacy remains embedded in the orchestra’s sound and personality.

Friday 19 June

Paris, Théâtre de la Ville • Pessoa – Since I’ve Been Me

I’d picked up a little book of Portuguese poetry while in Lisbon a few months ago. Fernando Pessoa, of course, was prominently featured, with pronouncements like:

It seemed only fitting that a visual poet like Robert Wilson should want to place his own imagination in dialogue with Pessoa’s. While rooted in Wilson’s by now familiar visual grammar, the production displayed enough originality to avoid the sense of déjà vu characteristic of many of his operatic stagings. By featuring Pessoa’s heteronyms, Wilson emphasised the fractal nature of the poet’s imagination, with its recurring patterns and abysses of self-reference.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

To Duisburg by plane

Duisburg, once arguably Europe’s steel capital, has reinvented itself without turning its back on its industrial past. The lovely promenade along the Innenhafen (Inner Harbour) illustrates the city’s ever-present commitment to its heritage. The Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst (MKM), a former grain mill and storage facility strikingly repurposed by Herzog & de Meuron, houses a formidable collection of modern and contemporary art. It is but one example of Duisburg’s commitment to the arts, alongside the numerous outdoor sculptures that enrich the urban landscape.

Duisburg, Theater Duisburg • A production of On the Town by Deutsche Oper am Rhein, a partnership between Duisburg and nearby Düsseldorf, struck many right notes. Even though some references (Gimbels, Goodbye Mr. Chips) are probably unsalvageable for modern audiences, the creative team skilfully honoured the distinctive charms of Comden & Green’s book, which so uniquely captures the gossamer yet lively atmosphere of 1944 New York City as the three sailors roam its streets in search of Miss U-Bahn before returning to a presumably less fancy-free life. The cast and orchestra mostly rose to the demands of Leonard Bernstein’s score, even managing a swing factor that often eludes European performers. In spite of a few questionable choices — Ozzie’s moustache, having Hildy chase Chip on her taxi while it seemed to drive itself, casting a man in drag as Lucy, injecting some anachronistic references into the staging of “Some Other Time” — I let myself be drawn into this tender celebration of the sweet ephemerality of time a-fleeting.

Sunday 7 June

Back to Paris by plane

Paris, UGC Maillot • Antonin Baudry’s L’Âge de fer, the first instalment of his La Bataille De Gaulle diptych, strongly impressed me with its sharp construction, visual mastery and deliciously manipulative soundtrack. Whatever liberties may have been taken with historical accuracy, the titanic confrontation between Simon Abkarian’s De Gaulle and Simon Russell Beale’s Churchill formed the film’s dramatic centre, while its unashamedly epic scenes demonstrated cinematic chops rarely seen in French films.

Tuesday 9 June

Paris, UGC Maillot • Pedro Almodóvar’s Amarga Navidad felt even more personal than his previous films, a contemplation on the boundaries between art and life, seemingly more than coincidentally reminiscent of Fellini’s 8½. While some may feel anger or frustration at the script’s cryptic, open-ended denouement, I embraced the typical Almodovarian ingredients: seemingly banal characters elevated into larger-than-life personas, to whom the camera appears to be making love. The fine soundtrack by Alberto Iglesias supplied just the right amount of melodrama, complete with distinct Douglas Sirk overtones.

Wednesday 10 June

Paris, Philharmonie de Paris · Klaus Mäkelä led the Orchestre de Paris in a programme combining Taste of Metal, a contemporary symphony by fellow Finn Sauli Zinovjev, and two late-19th century masterpieces that share the distinction of not having been attributed opus numbers: Schumann’s Violin Concerto (with Isabelle Faust as soloist) and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Mäkelä approached all three scores with the same unabashed romanticism, making the programme feel far more coherent than it looked on paper. The magic worked again, resulting in a performance that was enthusiastic, luxuriant, and intoxicatingly uplifting. I left the hall feeling buoyed by the kind of energy that only transcendent art can provide.

Thursday 11 June

Paris, Auditorium de Radio France · At the helm of the Orchestre National de France, Cristian Măcelaru curated a fascinating dialogue between the music of Elgar (the Cello Concerto, with Kia Soltani, as well as excerpts from The Dream of Gerontius) and contemporary works by Anna Clyne and Thierry Escaich — including a piece for solo organ, played by Alma Bettencourt, who later joined the orchestra for Gerontius. The experience was never less than absorbing. Măcelaru and Soltani brought out the extraordinary lyrical lushness of Elgar, while the contemporary pieces wittily balanced playfulness and ambition.

Friday 12 June

To Klagenfurt by plane and train

Klagenfurt, Stadttheater · Klagenfurt’s Stadttheater traditionally rounds off its seasons with ambitious productions of musicals, making use of the combined forces of the theatre’s musicians, actors, singers and dancers. This Hello, Dolly! didn’t disappoint. The nearly 30-strong orchestra played Phil Lang’s glorious charts with the same love and respect they would bestow upon a Wagner score — and I found myself overcome with emotion hearing the flute counterpoints and the orchestral buildup of “Put On Your Sunday Clothes.” The leading cast, led by the formidable Carin Filipčić as Dolly and the hilarious Tim Grobe as Horace, showed themselves experts at comedy, relying on broad characterisations and sustained, impeccable timing.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 30 May

To Stockholm by plane

Stockholm, Berwaldhallen • Herbert Blomstedt was scheduled to conduct the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 just weeks before his 99th birthday. At Berwaldhallen, the orchestra’s remarkable home, dug into a hillside, a brass bust of the conductor had recently been unveiled. Unfortunately, poor health forced Blomstedt to withdraw, and Alan Gilbert stepped in despite being on a “conducting sabbatical”. Gilbert gave equal weight to all orchestral lines, making it difficult for a convincing musical arc to emerge and leaving some passages sounding confused. Despite its exquisite tone, the Swedish orchestra never quite shed a certain stiffness, which kept emotion largely at bay. What might have been an exceptional occasion seldom rose above a carefully polished routine.

Sunday 31 May

Back to Paris by plane

Finished reading Simon Paré-Poupard’s Ordures!, an erudite, articulate, almost sociological inside look at the world of garbage collection in Montreal. An added delight for a French reader lay in the typically Canadian lexicon, which prompted frequent moments of linguistic mirth.

Wednesday 3 June

Paris, Théâtre du Lido · The delightful stage production of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort having been extended far beyond its original schedule, I took the opportunity to catch it for the third time a couple of weeks before its final curtain. I once again fell for Michel Legrand’s intoxicating score, lovingly performed by a standout orchestra, and for the undiminished collective energy of a cast whose members — for the most part — paid affectionate homage to their original cinematic counterparts. I occasionally glanced at the English supertitles and couldn’t help feeling that some of the charm of Jacques Demy’s dialogue had been lost in translation — “perm à Nantes,” anyone?

Thursday 4 June

Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées · The Orchestre National de France under Juraj Valčuha offered a strikingly short concert consisting solely of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, with Marianne Crebassa and Daniel Behle providing the voices. I never felt fully drawn into this elusive, singular work, sometimes even kept at bay by Behle’s all-out intensity, and yet moments of grace emerged, none so powerful as in Der Abschied, which Crebassa imbued with a quietly devastating valedictory luminosity.

Friday 5 June

Paris, La Scène parisienne · A musical about an unsolved murder built around Jacques Brel songs, using tacky karaoke tracks and a cast with limited vocal chops… What could go wrong? Well, about everything. Qui a tué Madeleine ? felt largely like a “why?” play, the sort of thing the authors might have imagined while intoxicated. Why they felt compelled to share it with the world will remain a mystery.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 23 May

New York, Palace Theatre • The Lost Boys, like Beaches, was based on a 1987 film, but the similarities largely ended there. A story of vampires taking over a Californian city sounds like an unlikely candidate for a musical, and yet the creative team came up with a finely crafted theatrical object: the wonderful scenic design by Dane Laffrey enabled exquisitely fluid, eye-popping transitions; the ambitious score by the pop band The Rescues rose well above banality; and a committed, charismatic cast sold the show with gusto.

New York, Music Box Theatre • Like Nixon/Frost, Oslo or Good Night, and Good Luck before it, Giant relied on a historical episode — in this case, the aftermath of a controversial 1983 book review written by children’s literature maverick Roald Dahl — to examine remarkably resonant issues in a superbly crafted, nuanced and dramatic manner. John Lithgow, unsurprisingly, gave a towering performance as the British author. He also seemed to act as a catalyst for the rest of the company, who rose to meet his exceptional standard, the resulting ensemble performance serving as a reminder of theatre’s transformative power.

Sunday 24 May

New York, Nederlander Theatre • I approached Schmigadoon with caution, expecting to find it cringeworthy, and yet I ended up buying into its questionable concept of paying homage to the musical theatre form by satirising it. Even though it worked for me, I couldn’t help thinking that audiences with limited familiarity with the Golden Age of musicals would probably miss both the homage and the satire, leaving the show to be judged solely on its mediocre music and lyrics. Christopher Gattelli’s direction and choreography likely did much to find the narrow ridgeline that kept the performance from plunging into the abyss. A temporary tonal shift into Sondheim territory in the second act may have been the wink too many, though.

Back to Paris by plane

Monday 25 May

Paris, Théâtre de la Ville · In Christos Papadopoulos’s My Fierce Ignorant Step, ten dancers performed elemental movements in near-synchronicity, subtly raising questions about the interdependence between a moving whole and its parts. The dancers’ ability to memorise an hour’s worth of seemingly Brownian motion, not to mention their physical endurance — they never stopped moving throughout the performance — amazed me. I found myself wondering whether the headsets they wore provided some form of guidance.

Wednesday 27 May

Paris, Philharmonie de Paris · After yet another instalment of Joan Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman (No. 6, this time, strangely arranged for solo piano), the Orchestre de Paris took on Dvořák’s Cello Concerto (with Truls Mørk) and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 under Anja Bihlmaier’s stewardship. The chamber music-inspired approach to the concerto resulted in a beautifully balanced and illuminating performance. A remark by K. about Dvořák’s connection with Victor Herbert also led me to discover the extent of the friendship between the two men. Alas, what had worked so well in the concerto proved far less convincing in the symphony, stripping the music of much of its character while highlighting Bihlmaier’s unfortunate tendency to rush the major tutti climaxes.

Thursday 28 May

Paris, Auditorium de Radio France · My giddy anticipation at hearing Zemlinsky’s shimmering Die Seejungfrau performed by the Orchestre National de France under Thomas Guggeis quickly turned to disappointment. The performance felt stiff and directionless, draining the score of much of its sensuality and sweep. The addition of a wholly superfluous narration only made matters worse, disrupting the work’s natural flow. The evening’s saving grace proved to be Patrick Pleutin’s live paintings, which restored some of the fluidity and sense of wonder too often absent from the performance.

Friday 29 May

Paris, Philharmonie de Paris · With subdued authority — and not a score in sight — Daniele Gatti led the Staatskapelle Dresden in a programme bracketing two French turn-of-the-century works, Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 (with the ubiquitous Gautier Capuçon) and Debussy’s La Mer, with Wagnerian orchestral staples: the Meistersinger Overture, the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, and Isolde’s Liebestod. The Wagner excerpts displayed the self-assurance of an orchestra from a city that can justly claim to have been Wagner’s artistic cradle. The musicians seemed less instinctively at ease in the French repertoire, however. La Mer’s shifting colours and elusive textures felt oddly earthbound.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 16 May

To London by plane

London, Coliseum • I approached this new production of Kinky Boots wondering whether the show still packed a punch thirteen years after its Broadway debut. Well, not quite. Cyndi Lauper’s score came across as mostly undistinguished, while Harvey Fierstein’s book, although providing some compelling scenes for the two protagonists, lacked structural discipline.

London, Southwark Playhouse Elephant • Korean composer Seungyeon Kwon and librettist/lyricist Jishik Kim have created a compelling one-person musical, The Last Man, based on the premise that zombies have taken over the world. A lone survivor, locked up in a bunker, chronicles their attempts at survival (the part is rotated between a male and a female actor). The show was not without flaws, but I enjoyed its originality and its craftily designed set — which looked like a low-budget cousin of the extraordinary set for Maybe Happy Ending. How satisfying that there should be writers keen to advance the musical form.

Sunday 17 May

London, Soho Theatre Walthamstow • Jinkx Monsoon took on the formidable challenge of impersonating Judy Garland in Peter Quilters’s End of the Rainbow, a play depicting Garland battling her demons while preparing for her famous 1968 London concerts, only months before dying from an overdose — also the inspiration for the movie Judy. Apart from the little vocal glitches — which made me fear for her ability to stay the course for the whole run but could also be attributed to Garland’s exhaustion — Monsoon gave a blazing performance both vocally and dramatically. I was particularly happy that the orchestrations for the on-stage band included a lot of bongos, one of the signature delights of Garland’s most famous arrangements.

To Paris by train

Monday 18 May

Paris, Théâtre de l’Athénée • Young tenor Laurence Kilsby designed an interesting programme of songs titled Paris est une fête, mostly created by composers associated with Paris in the first half of the 20th century, from Noël Coward to Ned Rorem. Supported by Ella O’Neill’s nuanced piano playing, Kilsby imbued each song with a singular and captivating dramatic intensity. Strangely, however, the emotional climax of the evening was an encore, Richard Strauss’s Morgen, which Kilsby sang as a tribute to the recently deceased Felicity Lott.

Thursday 21 May

To New York by plane

New York, Majestic Theatre • Based on the 1987 eponymous film, the musical Beaches chronicles the unlikely friendship of two women from two wildly different walks of life. The score and libretto failed to elevate the story beyond its linear, cheesy inevitability, yet the show achieved cinematic fluidity in a versatile if slightly cheap-looking set enhanced by projections. In the end, the strong performances by Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett made the experience worthwhile.

Friday 22 May

New York, Todd Haimes Theatre • The revival of Noël Coward’s 1925 parlour comedy Fallen Angels was given pace and punch by all-out performances by Kelli O’Hara and Rose Byrne, whose unapologetic physicality won well-deserved roars of laughter. By contrast, the secondary cast appeared weaker, and the expertly written role of the omniscient maid ended up sadly underexploited. David Rockwell’s archetypal set looked stunning.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

To Vienna by plane

Vienna, Musikverein • Renaud Capuçon and Igor Levit offered a masterful account of Brahms’s three Sonatas for violin and piano. The former seemed about as concentrated as the latter looked relaxed, and yet they complemented each other so convincingly that, more often than not, they appeared to play with a single mind. Together, they expertly navigated the full range of Brahmsian moods, and their performance proved colourful, intense, romantic, and ultimately exhilarating.

Sunday 10 May

Vienna, Konzerthaus • Performing Mahler’s scale-defying Symphony No. 8 one week after No. 3 borders on the unreasonable. Watching the Wiener Philharmoniker embark on such a Stakhanovite endeavour with Andris Nelsons was undeniably thrilling, yet it failed to trigger the same emotional response in me, even though the sheer scale of the assembled musicians and singers proved as visually striking as it was aurally overwhelming.

To Paris by plane

Tuesday 12 May

Paris, Théâtre de la Ville • A few minutes into this choreographic homage to Jacques Brel — co-conceived and performed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Solal Mariotte — I was reminded that my tolerance for the Belgian songster was, sadly, rather low. It didn’t help that very little actual movement took place on stage, and that De Keersmaeker and Mariotte often seemed more intent on listening to the songs alongside the audience than interpreting them through dance, relying instead on literal gestures — forming a heart shape with their hands — or an occasional pirouette: classical for her, breakdance-style for him.

Wednesday 13 May

Paris, Philharmonie • Evidently, young conductor Bar Avni had put considerable thought into crafting a programme of French music for the Orchestre de Paris. Bookended by two fun-filled orchestral staples — Milhaud’s Le Bœuf sur le toit and Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite (after Bizet) — two contrasting works allowed violinist Ava Bahari to showcase the breadth of her talent: Chausson’s Poème for lyrical expressiveness and Ravel’s Tzigane for sheer virtuosity. Alas, the intellectual satisfaction did not fully translate into visceral pleasure, with small lapses and missed opportunities standing in the way of a wholly satisfying experience.

Thursday 14 May

To Berlin by plane

Berlin, Philharmonie • Klaus Mäkelä’s first appearance at the helm of the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2023 had amounted to a missed rendezvous. That the Finnish conductor, barely 30 years old, chose Stravinsky’s The Firebird, a piece written by a 28-year-old determined to make his mark, for this 2026 concert seemed to add subtext to the programme. In any case, this triumphal performance unfolded in a profusion of nuances, and its fiery culmination sent shockwaves through the auditorium. Opening the evening with Andrew Norman’s Play, a highly technical yet immensely enjoyable contemporary work, allowed both orchestra and conductor to shine. This new rendezvous was certainly put to good use.

Friday 15 May

To Düsseldorf by plane, then Wuppertal by train

Wuppertal, Opernhaus • Thanks to the German repertory system, Oper Wuppertal could offer a remarkably ambitious and very successful production of The Light in the Piazza, one of the first masterpieces of the 21st century, relying almost entirely on its in-house personnel. The staging proved inspired and inventive, the full orchestra sounded superb, and the trained operatic voices did wonders navigating Adam Guettel’s demanding writing — I don’t think I’d ever heard such a good Franca. Strong performances across the board included a wonderful gallery of singers/actors bringing sharp comedic instincts to the Naccarelli family. Unusually, the supertitles described the scenes rather than translating them word for word. The lyrics were treated in a more typical fashion, and once again the English translation of the German lyrics sometimes differed from the original — which is how “Dividing Day” became “When Did Love Die?”

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Vienna, Ronacher • The Austrian homegrown musical Maria-Theresia seemed intent on replicating the Hamilton formula, giving a historical figure a contemporary twist, both visually — the sleeveless costumes — and musically, with a score drawing from pop and rap. Yet talent like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s is scarce and the show felt more derivative than genuinely inspired. The overall scenic design partially made up for it through its inventive and fluid use of lights and projections, combined with a limited number of versatile set pieces.

Vienna, Volksoper • The recent debacle at New York’s Roundabout proved that even Gilbert & Sullivan productions in the English-speaking world can miss the mark. Which is why I approached this Austrian production of The Pirates of Penzance (Die Piraten von Penzance) warily. This Volksoper production wisely chose to embrace what makes British operetta so singular instead of trying to circumvent it. The end result proved thoroughly enjoyable, and hearing the score played by a full orchestra was a welcome treat. The few songs translated into German, and unwisely updated, sadly provided the low points of the show, illustrating, if proof were needed, that some properties should not be tampered with.

Sunday 3 May

Vienna, Musikverein • The performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 by the Wiener Philharmoniker under Andris Nelsons became one of those suspended experiences bordering on the religious. Sitting behind the second violins, I was ideally placed to observe both the intricacies of the score — the section splits into four parts in the third movement — and the orchestra breathing as one, collectively intent on shaping every dramatic contour of the music. Such intensity left me almost physically overwhelmed, and I struggled to regain my bearings after the exquisitely managed final release.

To Paris by plane

Wednesday 6 May

Paris, Philharmonie • Klaus Mäkelä led the Orchestre de Paris in a programme coupling Grieg’s Piano Concerto (with Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii) and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. An embarrassment of riches, played with generosity and an infectious sense of communal pleasure. Kudos to principal double bass Ulysse Vigreux for giving the symphony’s third movement its earthy, almost creaky opening statement.

Friday 8 May

To Berlin by plane

Berlin, Philharmonie • Kirill Petrenko led the Berliner Philharmoniker in a repeat of the previous week’s Europakonzert at Schloss Esterházy, minus the occasional Haydn Overture. Throughout the exquisitely executed programme, a theme of musical transitions emerged: Stravinsky relying on Pergolesi to unveil his neoclassical — yet decidedly forward-looking — idiom in Pulcinella; Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, still played spotlessly by Gautier Capuçon, transforming a seemingly passé theme through the composer’s unmistakable romantic sensitivity; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, acknowledging the form’s debt to Haydn and Mozart while resolutely opening a new chapter.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

To London by train, then Berlin by plane

Berlin, Philharmonie • 98-year-old Herbert Blomstedt led the Berliner Philharmoniker in a vibrant, febrile reading of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, teeming with urgency and unbridled energy. The contrast between the conductor’s physical frailty and the searing, all-out performance he coaxed from an adoring orchestra made the experience absolutely gut-wrenching.

Sunday 26 April

To Amsterdam by plane

Amsterdam, Dutch National Opera and Ballet • It’s hard to believe Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Passenger (Die Passagierin, Пассажирка) has gained so little recognition in operatic circles. His feverish score, hovering between Britten and Shostakovich, is a perfect match for Zofia Posmysz-Piasecka’s searing novel about Holocaust memory. It was performed with pulsating energy by the Netherlands Philharmonic and a wonderfully committed cast under Adam Hickox. I’m usually a fan of director Tobias Kratzer, but his concept blurred the plot’s legibility and ultimately did the work a disservice — Rainer Sellmaier’s set didn’t help, with its terrible sight lines in Act 1.

Back to Paris by train

Thursday 30 April

To Vienna by plane

Friday 1 May

Eisenstadt, Schloß Esterházy • The Berliner Philharmoniker’s annual Europakonzert took place at the Esterházy Palace, in the aptly named Haydnsaal. Kirill Petrenko led the band in a carefully curated programme opening with a short Haydn Overture and closing with an iron-hot performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. In between, two later works showcased the orchestra’s timbral versatility: Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations (masterfully played by Gautier Capuçon) and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella.

Vienna, Musikverein (Brahmssaal) • Violist Antoine Tamestit and pianist Bertrand Chamayou offered a programme of formidable stamina: Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, Liszt’s Romance oubliée and Shostakovich’s Sonata for viola and piano (with its funky Beethoven quotes). Both performers instilled dramatic potency and head-spinning virtuosity in a programme that left the audience gasping for air… and asking for more.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 18 April

To Vienna by plane

Vienna, Musikverein • Opinion on Simon Rattle as a Mahlerian conductor is sharply divided, and I find myself on both sides of the line. In this instance, whatever he sought to bring to this interpretation of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 by the Wiener Philharmoniker was utterly lost on me. Loud and often needlessly convoluted, his reading unearthed no revelation and left emotion at the door. The dying finale may have been the most successful passage, yet the sudden silence was spoilt by the creaking of the Musikverein’s ancient woodwork — probably made worse by a restless audience.

Vienna, Konzerthaus • Tugan Sokhiev led the Luxembourg Philharmonic in a phenomenal performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (with Louise Alder, Okka von der Damerau and the Wiener Singakademie), which grabbed me from the first bar and didn’t let go until the momentous, ecstatic finale. The attention to detail didn’t distract from the overarching drama. Sokhiev expertly worked with colours and subterranean tension to build towards a telluric, rapturous climax.

Sunday 19 April

Back to Paris by plane

Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées • Yannick Nézet-Séguin injected considerable dramatic relief into a concert production of Siegfried that blew the roof off the theatre. At the helm of a white-hot Rotterdam Philharmonic and a superb cast, he showed impeccable Wagnerian instincts by emphasising both the heavenly accents and the primal momentum of the piece. The stylistic shift at the beginning of Act 3 contributed to the epic’s arc in a novel way. It was my forty-fourth Siegfried, give or take, and one of the most consistently captivating.

Tuesday 21 April

Paris, Palais-Garnier • A performance of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha is akin to a ceremony, as I had discovered in English National Opera’s captivating 2013 production. Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber’s concept for the Opéra de Paris relied heavily on movement and dance, adding an extra visual narrative layer that probably tilted the piece closer to Einstein on the Beach than originally envisioned. The obsessive repetitions made for a hypnotic, almost religious experience, opening windows onto other worlds, like the descending fourths of Act 3, very reminiscent of the opening bars of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.

Wednesday 22 April

Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet • It is a challenge to recreate the Astaire–Rogers alchemy without them. Kathleen Marshall, as I had already witnessed in Chichester where this production of Top Hat originated, didn’t quite rise to the occasion. Sure, the infectiously toe-tapping Irving Berlin score was given a decent reading in Chris Walker’s orchestration, but everything else felt faintly underwhelming: the leads, the set design, etc. Even the much-awaited ostrich-feathered dress failed to hit the mark. Oh well.

Friday 24 April

To Leicester by train, via London

Leicester, Curve • Having sadly missed the original production, I was hoping to catch a performance that would match my admiration for Kander & Ebb’s darkly wonderful Kiss of the Spider Woman. I even travelled to Melbourne especially to catch Caroline O’Connor’s performance as Aurora in 2019, but I wasn’t bowled over. Then came this co-production between Leicester Curve, Bristol Old Vic and Mayflower Southampton, directed with impeccable flair by Paul Foster, which came as close to perfection as one could reasonably hope. Armed with a brilliant cast (including the always fabulous Anna-Jane Casey as Aurora), Foster crafted a heart-wrenching, finely calibrated conception that made every storyline legible, whether in the grim prison cell at the centre of the stage, in Molina’s imagination… or somewhere in-between. Sarah Travis’s reduced orchestration managed to keep most of the magic of the original charts, even though those shrill descending flute lines during the title song were sorely missed. The quote from Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 was still there, though.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 11 April

To Amsterdam by train

Amsterdam, Concertgebouw • Stanislav Kochanovsky led the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme juxtaposing two hypnotic contemporary works with a towering 20th-century landmark, Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Lera Auerbach’s Icarus, with its eerie theremin part, proved an apt curtain-raiser. Daniel Wohl’s Lighthouse, a piano concerto performed with conviction by Francesco Tristano, seemed to reach for a synthesis of various currents in contemporary music. It filled the hall with a rhythmic, unusual yet captivating blend of electronics and traditional instruments. Kochanovsky offered a few illuminating remarks before the concert, an initiative more conductors might usefully adopt.

Amsterdam, DeLaMar Theatre • A production of the musical Hairspray, whose only shortcoming may have been its reduced orchestra, delivered a thoroughly entertaining evening. The versatility of the non-replica staging excelled at streamlining transitions that even the original production struggled with, while the cast delivered warm, spot-on characterisations across the board. Halfway through the performance, I had a small epiphany: most characters bear alliterative names — Tracy Turnblad (TT), Motormouth Maybelle (MM), etc. How had I never noticed that before?

Sunday 12 April

Amsterdam, Concertgebouw • The regional orchestra Philzuid’s Sunday morning concert paired Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Haydn’s Symphony No. 82, “The Bear.” The concerto, played by the Storioni Trio, did little to deepen my interest in this work — I’m sure it will come eventually — whereas the symphony, energetically conducted by Tung-Chieh Chuang, proved all the more delightful as my expectations were low.

Amsterdam, Concertgebouw • Aurel Dawidiuk led the Concertgebouworkest in a programme bracketing Poulenc’s too seldom performed Organ Concerto (1938) between two emblematic works of the late 19th-century repertoire: Debussy’s Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. The concerto, expertly performed by Leo van Doeselaar, highlighted Poulenc’s familiar blend of quasi-liturgical chiaroscuro harmonies and breathless rhythmic episodes — an underrated masterpiece by an underrated composer.

Back to Paris by train

Monday 13 April

Paris, Philharmonie • Daniel Harding led the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, played by Igor Levit, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Despite being a fan of Levit, I found his analytical, almost Jansenist approach at odds with the orchestra’s shimmering expansiveness — qualities that, by contrast, lent Elgar’s masterpiece a glowing, polychromatic reading that left the audience almost panting before such beauty.

Wednesday 15 April

Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées • The Ballet BC (as in British Columbia) offered a triple bill of contemporary ballets, by Crystal Pite, Mehdi Walerski and Johan Inger, all performed in France for the first time. The first two suffered from “Contemporary Ballet Syndrome,” rehashing clichéd movements and atmospheres and leaving a strong sense of déjà vu. Inger’s Passing, by contrast, proved far more original and rewarding: its somewhat wacky narrative unfolded with gleeful abandon until, sadly, snow began to fall from the flies, at which point it felt as though the well of inspiration had run dry.

Friday 17 April

Paris, Petit-Montparnasse • I was a little too young to remember the 1973 hijacking of an Air France plane by a 35-year-old woman who sought to block the release of Gérard Oury’s film Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob, starring Louis de Funès, which she feared would jeopardise the chances of peace in the Middle East. Jean-Philippe Daguerre chose to draw on that episode for a mildly entertaining 90-minute play, La Femme qui n’aimait pas Rabbi Jacob, retracing the chain of events leading up to the incident, while also offering a somewhat troubling perspective on the police response. The production’s main asset lay in its striking set design built around nine highly versatile screens.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 4 April

To Berlin by train

Berlin, Staatsoper • I gathered three take-aways attending a performance of this new production of Un ballo in maschera, directed by Rafael R. Villalobos and conducted by Enrique Mazzola. Firstly, that this score by Giuseppe Verdi never quite manages to draw me in. Second, that Anna Netrebko still possessed an uncanny ability to draw everyone’s attention to her the moment she set foot on stage to sing Amelia with her usual flair. Third, that nothing touches me more than a deep baritone voice, and Amartuvshin Enkhbat left me reeling every time Renato opened his mouth.

Sunday 5 April

Berlin, Staatsoper • André Heller’s production of Der Rosenkavalier, which debuted in 2015, felt like an ageless classic — not unlike the venerable Otto Schenk staging, still in the repertoire of Vienna’s Staatsoper as of this writing after nearly 60 years. The shift to the Vienna Secession era wrapped the piece in vibrant colours and enhanced its emotional impact by bringing the action closer to us. A superb cast — Julia Kleiter as the Feldmarschallin, Peter Rose as Baron Ochs and Patricia Nolz as Octavian — elevated the score’s bittersweet, heart-rending beauty, while Christian Thielemann drew a shimmering, kaleidoscopic reading from the Staatskapelle Berlin.

Monday 6 April

To Salzburg by plane

Salzburg, Felsenreitschule • Das Rheingold, marking the Berliner Philharmoniker’s return to Salzburg’s Easter Festival, didn’t disappoint. The prologue of this new Ring cycle helmed by the two Kirills — with Petrenko in the pit and Serebrennikov on stage — turned out to be absolute musical bliss. Christian Gerhaher’s Wotan projected authority and doubt in equal measure, while a cast largely unfamiliar to me gave depth and vibrancy to the other characters. The huge, wingless stage undermined the visually busy concept the director tried to develop, but that hardly diminished my enjoyment, as Petrenko’s light touch led to such musical radiance.

Tuesday 7 April

Back to Paris by plane

Wednesday 8 April

Paris, Philharmonie • Esa-Pekka Salonen once again led the Orchestre de Paris in a repertoire he knows inside out: Strauss’s Don Juan (1889), Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (1939) — with Renaud Capuçon — and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 (1919). He coaxed glowing, telluric performances from an enthusiastic orchestra, foreshadowing another great era for his tenure as musical director.

Thursday 9 April

Paris, Théâtre de Chaillot • 45 years after its creation, May B, one of Maguy Marin’s most successful ballets, hadn’t lost its edge. Set to a finely curated soundtrack featuring several of Schubert’s greatest lieder, a slightly obsessive sequence showed a bunch of atypical characters in atypical situations, evolving both as individuals and as a collective entity. Marin challenged some of ballet’s conventions and unspoken rules back in 1981. Those conventions have mostly been shattered since, yet May B has kept its ability to disturb and provoke. Isn’t that the essence of art?

Friday 10 April

Paris, Maison de la Radio • The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France invited composer Thomas Adès to conduct a programme placing in dialogue two of his own compositions — the piano concerto In Seven Days (with Bertrand Chamayou) and an orchestral piece, Aquifer — with two works by a composer he has often cited as a major influence, Jean Sibelius — Tapiola and Symphony No. 7. The juxtaposition made for a fascinating performance, full of earthy and ethereal textures, interpreted with palpable delight by the orchestra. A rewarding experience, and a striking illustration of what an ever-morphing, still-alive art form classical music can be.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.

Saturday 28 March

London, Royal Ballet and Opera • Barrie Kosky’s take on Siegfried relied on a series of sophisticated visuals which drew me in from the get-go. It offered an apt setting for a musically sumptuous performance, led with zest and gusto by Antonio Pappano, and served by a cast attentive to the overall balance of the drama. Having sadly been unable to attend Kosky’s Die Walküre, I found myself looking forward to presentations of the full cycle, hopefully in the near future.

Sunday 29 March

London, Charing Cross Theatre • There are musicals which don’t sound very promising on paper but still grab the audience by the throat thanks to the sharpness of their writing. No such luck for A Mirrored Monet, which proved about as unexciting on stage as its “pitch” had implied. The flat, narrative book didn’t unearth striking dramatic hooks in the life of the French painter Claude Monet and was dragged down by a generic, charmless score. The only redeeming grace of the performance lay in its deft visual design, providing a convincing demonstration of what technology can bring to theatrical design.

Back to Paris by train

Tuesday 31 March

Paris, Théâtre de l’Athénée • This French-language production of No, No, Nanette, served by a winning cast, proved joyous and effusive beyond expectations. The orchestrations — the collective work of six people, if the programme is to be trusted — filled the auditorium with toe-tapping, jazz-infused effervescence, perfectly executed by the orchestra Les Frivolités parisiennes. Christophe Mirambeau’s French-language adaptation demonstrated a fine-tuned sensitivity to the fascinating art of lyric-writing, while the set design proved versatile if a little abstract. The direction was a little “semaphoric” to my taste, but the overall experience drew me into a mood of bubbly, sunny, jolly abandon.

Wednesday 1 April

Paris, Philharmonie de Paris • Leading the Orchestre de Paris, Esa-Pekka Salonen proved once again the deep kinship he obviously feels with both Debussy (Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune [1894], La Mer [1905]) and Sibelius (Pohjola’s Daughter [1906]). Both composers aimed to lead symphonic music into the 20th century, taking different routes that ended up freeing melodic and harmonic languages for generations to come. Salonen’s own Horn Concerto, written for and performed by Stephan Dohr, can be heard as a distant beneficiary of those new pathways, yet the aural experience somehow failed to take flight.

Friday 3 April

To Dresden by plane and train

Dresden, Semperoper • There are few musical experiences as fitting as attending a performance of Parsifal on Good Friday. Floris Visser designed a staging in which the story emerged as the product of a young boy’s imagination, a counterpart of sorts to the titular reiner Tor. A strong cast, led by the superb Georg Zeppenfeld as Gurnemanz, gave an intense and focused performance, while Daniele Gatti led the scintillating orchestra in a nuanced, expressive and eventually transfixing reading of Wagner’s sublime score.

And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.