Trapped in an unhappy marriage, a woman mourns the devastation of the forest around her. An unexpected affair instigates an explosive metamorphosis, and she finds perfect release as a tree. But the world is a dangerous place for trees, and deep in the forest a forester and a student lay claim to a body of wood and leaf - one for money and one for love. A subversion of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Like flesh is the fruit of a collaboration between a group of committed young artists. The Israeli composer Sivan Eldar creates an intriguing sound world by combining orchestral and electro-acoustic music. The British playwright Cordelia Lynn is already well known in English theatre circles for, among other things, her collaboration with Katie Mitchell to re-stage The Tempest.

Beethoven's only opera came to the stage of the Opéra Comique in Paris in 2021 in a sensational production. The work of conductor Raphaël Pichon and director Cyril Teste reveals their appreciation for a work that is rarely performed in France. At the center of the plot is Leonore, who, disguised as a man, searches for her husband Florestan.

When, in 1733, Voltaire, the most brilliant mind of his day, collaborates with Rameau, its greatest composer, in undertaking an ambitious reform of operatic practice, the result is the biblical opera Samson. But the libretto is condemned and the score lost – possibly reworked here and there in later compositions. Claus Guth and Raphaël Pichon, haunted by this interesting project that had turned into one of the most intriguing failures in operatic history, have tried, not to recreate the letter, but to revive the spirit: to marry a strong, noble libretto with the most eloquent music.

Supposedly dead that very morning in the pool from a "broken heart" while swimming the butterfly stroke, a strangely rejuvenated mother visits her daughter. In another time, further south, a village priest believes he sees a wall of his church shedding tears that form a face... Miracles? It's a matter of perspective, and even of hearing, suggests director Samuel Achache cheerfully. Certainly, a birth and a romantic encounter, two events that will also be discussed here, can be described as miraculous. But what about when a phenomenon that defies the laws of nature actually occurs?