Luisa Miller - Paris Events

Perhaps an odd work to première on St Valentine's Day, Verdi's Luisa Miller opens on that very day at the Opéra Bastille, in Belgian director Gilbert Deflo's new Opéra national de Paris production.
Luisa Miller was Verdi's second Schiller adaptations, based on the German dramatist's Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love), where real people's lives are affected by the fickleness of the aristocracy. Set in the Tyrol in the early 1700s, Count Walter's son Rodolfo is expected to marry Federica, but he is really in love with Luisa.

The aristocrats demand that their will be obeyed, and, imprisoning Rodolfo for refusing to marry Federica, they also force Luisa to write a love letter to one of the Count's employees, Wurm (blackmailing her to save her father who has insulted the Count). When Rodolfo, freed, hears from Luisa that she did write the letter, he poisons her and then himself, but not before she is able to kill Wurm before dying.

Luisa is sung by Ana Maria Martinez, with Marina Domashenko as Federica, Ramon Vargas as Rodolfo, Andrzej Dobber as the Miller, Ildar Abdrazakov as Walter, Kwangchul Youn as Wurm and Maria Virginia Savastano as Laura. Massimo Zanetti conducts.

With one of the longest continuing operatic pedigrees in the world, the Opéra national de Paris - now housed in the modern Opéra Bastille as well as often returning to perform in the 1875 vintage Palais Garnier - can date its history back to 1669, when Robert Cambert and Abbé Pierre Perrin received Louis XIV's permission to stage opera. Subsequent important figures in Paris' operatic life include composers Lully, Rameau, Meyerbeer, Messiaen alongside lesser-known figures to modern audiences, such as Spontini, Hérold and Halévy.

The move to the new Opéra Bastille took place (admittedly amidst controversy) in 1990, but the company's two principal venues have allowed operatic life to flourish again in the 21st century. Since 2004 Gérard Mortier (previously intendant at the Salzburg Festival) has been director. When he retires in 2009, he is replaced by Nicolas Joel, when Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan becomes music director.