Home Destinations Europe France Provence Entertainment Festival International d'Art Lyrique

Festival International d'Art Lyrique Review

Read our Provence reviews. Or post your own.

Festival International d'Art Lyrique

Phone: 04-42-17-34-00 for information

International Opera Festival

Category: Festivals
Location: Aix-en-Provence

Write a review

Fodor's Review:

Every July during the Festival International d'Art Lyrique (International Opera Festival),you can see world-class opera productions in the courtyard of the Palais de l'Archevêché. It is one of the most important opera festivals in Europe, and cutting-edge productions involve the best artists available—guests in the past have included director Peter Brook, choreographers Trisha Brown and Pina Bausch, and conductor Claudio Abbado. The repertoire is varied and often offbeat, featuring works like Britten's Curlew River and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle as well as the usual Mozart, Puccini, and Verdi. Most of the singers, however, are not celebrities, but rather an elite group of students who spend the summer with the Academie Européenne de Musique, training and performing under the tutelage of stars like Robert Tear and Yo-Yo Ma. Tickets can be purchased as early as November for the following summer, but it's usually possible to find seats a month in advance. After that, seats are scarce.

Find more nightlife in Provence »