Floriane Hasler

For its 2025 edition, La Folle Journée celebrates the cities of music. Ricercar Consort and Floriane Hasler have chosen Venice as the destination for their concert, with Vivaldi guiding them through the Serenissima.

Among Seville’s cigar makers, Carmen is the most attractive woman around. Arrested for the assault of a friend, she enthralls the brigadier Don José who lets her escape. For her, José abandons his childhood sweetheart, he gives up his rank, deserts the army… and to what ends will passion drive him when he loses Carmen's love to the glamorous bullfighter Escamillo? We can only imagine the reactions of the first Parisian audiences at the Opéra Comique, who are said to have been shocked to see the incarnation of such an independent heroine. But what would those audiences in 1875 have actually seen on stage? With the support of Palazzetto Bru Zane (Centre de Musique Romantique Française), Opéra de Rouen Normandie have (re)created Bizet’s Carmen with the original costumes, sets and staging of the 1875 premiere.

Conducted by Aziz Shokhakimov, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg presents a rare work by Camille Saint-Saëns: the Oratorio de Noël. Composed in 1858 when the composer was just 23 years old, this cantata-like work is rarely performed on stage, making its performance quite unprecedented.

The story concerns a pair of lovers, Acante and Céphise, who suffer at the hands of a wicked genie Oroès. They are saved by the good fairy Zirphile, who uses her magic powers, including the gift of telepathy (the sympathie of the title), to defeat Oroès.