Sandrine Piau

Since the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival was founded in 2020, the city of Bayreuth has become a mecca for Baroque music. Sandrine Piau invites us to savour the frivolity of 18th-century Rome through cantatas with enchanting notes.

Sacred music meets the theatricality of opera in Handel's oratorio Messiah, here conducted by Laurence Equilbey and performed by the Insula Orchestra, Polish artist Jakub Józef Orliński and the Chœurs accentus at the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival.

Nothing is for forever. And people make mistakes. And yet, letting go is the hardest challenge when you're burning with love for the first time and want nothing more than to hold on to it forever. But can you feel as intensely forever as you did in the beginning? Così fan tutte in Benedict Andrews’s new production deals with the exuberant feelings that drive young love in the rush of hormones. Sometimes it touches the fringes of human relationships, where one threatens to lose oneself in the search for intensity. Thus the two young couples, who think they have already discovered the essence of true love, meet two experienced counterparts in Don Alfonso and Despina. An experiment begins in which the men put the fidelity of their partners to the test by playing a game of disguise. What remains is disillusionment. And the possibility of a painful realization: only freedom and the longing for union are certain. Disappointment and rejection are part of the game – because no love is ideal.

The world premiere of composer Kaija Saariaho's opera, "Innocence", at the 2021 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Finland is the setting but the protagonists come from the four corners of Europe: a Finnish groom and his Romanian bride, a French mother-in-law and a Czech maid. Around them memories unravel in a contemporary tragedy of guilt and lost innocence.

Founded in 2012 by Laurence Equilbey, the Insula Orchestra performs on period instruments and experiments with new concert formats. In summer 2018, the French conductor and her ensemble will present a little-known work by Mozart at the Parisian cultural center La Seine Musicale: the incidental music to "Thamos, King in Egypt". In 1773, the author Tobias Philipp Freiherr von Gebler asked his fellow Freemason Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to compose incidental music for his heroic drama "Thamos, King of Egypt". The boy wonder composed two choruses and five interludes for the play, which took up the Egyptian theme popular in the 18th century.

At Salzburg Festival, Cecilia Bartoli shines as Ariodante with her dazzling coloratura in a highly acclaimed new production by the German director Christoph Loy, who is known for his clever psychological stagings. Loy turns Handel's splendid baroque opera into an exciting and differentiated reflection on gender roles.

Discover Ariodante, George Frideric Handel’s Baroque opera, a masterpiece plunging us into the ruthless world of the Scottish royal court through a love story of knight-errant Ariodante and princess Ginevra. Christof Loy staged the production at the Salzburg Festival 2017, alongside maestro Gianluca Capuano who conducted Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco.

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The 2016 Aix-en-Provence Festival presented Mozart’s Così fan tutte in a modern, provocative production directed by Christophe Honoré. The staging reimagined the opera’s exploration of fidelity and deception against the backdrop of colonial-era Africa, addressing themes of power and exploitation. Honoré’s bold interpretation divided audiences, with some praising its daring approach and others finding it controversial. Conducted by Louis Langrée, the performance featured an exceptional cast, including Sandrine Piau, Lenneke Ruiten, and Kate Lindsey, whose vocal finesse and dramatic commitment brought vitality to Mozart’s intricate score. The inventive production blended historical commentary with the opera’s timeless emotional and comedic core, marking a memorable contribution to the festival’s legacy.

At the end of 2013, the year that marked the 50th anniversary of Francis Poulenc’s death, his gripping and moving operatic masterpiece, Dialogues des Carmélites was staged in Paris by director Olivier Py with a cast featuring some of France’s finest female singers – Patricia Petitbon, Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau and Sophie Koch – under the baton of Jérémie Rohrer. Le Figaro described the production as “a thing of wonder,” while Le Monde called it: “A masterpiece ... the most exciting and consummately achieved show to have been seen on a Parisian stage in a long time … This was great work, magisterial and unforgettable.” “The memorable Dialogues des Carmélites at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées marked the climax of commemorative activities for the 50th anniversary of Poulenc’s death,” wrote Opera magazine of the production of Poulenc’s gripping and moving opera that was staged by the French director Olivier Py in Paris in December 2013.