Quiet Intensity, Human Emotion
17 – 23 January 2026
Saturday 17 January
To Berlin by plane
Berlin, Philharmonie • Kirill Petrenko led the Berliner Philharmoniker — joined by three choirs and eight soloists — in an inspired, deliberate, and stirring account of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8. Petrenko’s unmatched ability to sculpt sound, guided by an assured musical instinct, carried the second part and its overarching theme of redemption through love unmistakably into Parsifal territory. Where others emphasise power and release, Petrenko cherished inward, heartfelt intensity. The result felt appropriately mystical.
Sunday 18 January
Back to Paris by plane
Paris, Palais-Garnier • To mark its 150th anniversary, the Palais-Garnier hosted a retrospective exhibition retracing its origins and highlighting several key moments in its history. Alongside a bevy of etchings, costumes and set models, one section in particular explored the real-life event that inspired Gaston Leroux to write Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, as well as some of the films and ballets it later inspired. I took the opportunity to discover the mythical library — at least the section open to the public — where hundreds of opera scores, from the most famous to the long forgotten, have been lovingly preserved in handsome wooden cabinets.
Paris, Musée du Louvre • A temporary exhibition retraced the career of painter Jacques-Louis David by juxtaposing works from the museum’s holdings with outside loans. Often referred to as “the painter of the Revolution,” David was forced into exile after the restoration of the monarchy and settled in Brussels, where he enjoyed a late period of fame — and reportedly became an avid opera-goer. I enjoyed the exhibition’s museographic efforts, which included a compelling grouping of two officially sanctioned copies of La Mort de Marat alongside the original, but they did little to increase my admittedly limited appreciation of David’s work.
Monday 19 January
Paris, Opéra-Comique • The cardinal virtue of the new production of Massenet’s Werther, soberly directed by Ted Huffman, was the fiery, unabashedly romantic performance of Pygmalion under Raphaël Pichon. When the score soared in the third and fourth acts, Pichon drove it to a boiling point, relishing the many beauties of the orchestration and peaking in the bewitching saxophone solo. The vocal cast met the score’s demands overall, yet Julie Roset’s Sophie stood out, her clear, youthful soprano providing some exquisite freshness to the evening.
Tuesday 20 January
Paris, Philharmonie • A few days after his thirtieth birthday, Klaus Mäkelä led the touring Oslo Philharmonic in Shostakovich’s Symphonies No. 6 and 8, two works of widely different tone and colour. Under the proud eye of Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway, the orchestra demonstrated a remarkable ability to channel Mäkelä’s seemingly inexhaustible energy into an enthusiastic yet detailed performance, not least in the lushness of its string playing.
Wednesday 21 January
Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées • With a finely curated recital programme, Alice Sara Ott created a fascinating dialogue between two near-contemporaries: Beethoven (1770-1827), the enduring superstar, and John Field (1782-1837), now largely relegated to the footnotes of music history. Born in Ireland, Field spent most of his adult life in St. Petersburg and is commonly described as the father of the Romantic piano nocturne. Ott juxtaposed several of Field’s nocturnes with three Beethoven sonatas, punctuating the sequence with heartfelt spoken interludes. By giving meaning and structure to her programme rather than assembling a haphazard selection of mismatched works, she set the bar much higher than most of her colleagues. The experience was further heightened by her striking technical and spiritual ownership.
Thursday, 22 January
Paris, Théâtre du Rond-Point • Emma Dante infused her staging of Molière’s L’École des femmes with a keen sense of theatricality, drawing on colourful visuals, puppet-like postures, and a catchy soundtrack inspired by her Sicilian roots. It provided a fine environment for the troupe of the Comédie-Française, exiled from the Salle-Richelieu during renovation works, to pay homage to the exquisite talent of their founding playwright.
Friday, 23 January
Paris, Théâtre Marigny • Amadeus, Peter Shaffer’s virtuosic exercise in historical fiction, received a first-class revival helmed by Olivier Solivérès. Despite its title, the play is ultimately about Salieri, whose inner conflicts were portrayed here with breathtaking intensity by Jérôme Kircher. I could probably have lived without the fake candles and the masked ushers, but the production nonetheless illustrated the enduring power of theatre when it sits at the crossroads of drama and music.
And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.