DRESS REHERSAL: For Maison Lesage artistic director Hubert Barrère, the June 21 premiere of “Zémire et Azor,” the opéra-comique — a genre of French opera with dialogue in addition to sung segments — might be culmination of a childhood dream.
“It’s something I all the time desired to do,” he told WWD ahead of June 21 premiere of this performance for which he designed the costumes and décor on the invitation of Opéra Comique director Louis Langrée.
Written by 18th-century composer André Grétry, the story loosely follows the plot of the Beauty and the Beast and was adapted to Queen Marie-Antoinette’s tastes, with Zémire because the daughter of a merchant from Ormuz, Iran, who picks a rose from the garden of cursed...
Continue reading
