Please enjoy how Nicolas Joel, Director of the Opéra de Paris presents the programme for 2012-13:

Palais Garnier, Paris. Photo: Henning Høholt

Opera programme includes:

This season will be rich in celebrations. In 1713, Louis XIV, wishing to consolidate the Royal Academy of Music, established a dance school which has ever since perpetuated the tradition of French choreographic style. In 2013, we will also be celebrating the bicentenary of two of the great reformers of 19th century opera, Wagner and Verdi, with The Ring of the Nibelung conducted by our musical director Philippe Jordan, along with Verdi’s Falstaff and the Requiem.

We shall play host to La Fille du regiment starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez and to a new Carmen, directed by Yves Beaunesne and performed by Anna Caterina Antonacci and Karine Deshayes. Both Ponchielli’s flamboyant La Gioconda, with Violeta Urmana and Marcelo Alvarez and Hänsel & Gretel by Humperdinck, staged by Mariame Clément and conducted by Claus Peter Flor, will also join the repertoire.

Other works alongside Tosca, Le Nozze di Figaro and La Cenerentola. include Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress, Mussorgsky’s Khovantchina and the diptych formed by Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg and Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges
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Opera Bastille, Paris.

The Ballet programme includes:

In this its tercentennial season, the Paris Opera Ballet will be showing off its eternal youth and creativity. The greatest choreographers will be present. What better proof of the company’s extraordinary diversity than the fact that Pierre Lacotte’s La Sylphide, Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quichotte and Signes by Carolyn Carlson and Olivier Debré all contribute to making up its identity? Marie-Agnès Gillot will create her first choreography for the Company and a new Boléro will be unveiled by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet and Marina Abramovic. All this and more keep the passion and spirit of this incomparable opera house alive whilst arousing the curiosity and passion of our ever-growing audience

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