I saw Cristina Pasaroiu in different productions in Nice, like an incredible Rachel in La Juive and one of the best Traviatas i ever see. I was very surprised to see how this artist sang the role of Valentine, one of the most dramatic and difficult roles of the French Grand Opera repertoire. She is such a young lady and so much maturity. Every sound, every word, movement and feeling was marvellous. Such a technic and a perfect control at 28 years old! I was so impressed and i'm sure this name will shine on the most important opera houses all over the world. We just love her!

I saw the March 27 performance in Nice. The singing was generally good but the production was overly ambitious. The characters were so unrecognizable that even for a person familiar with the plot it was hard to follow what was going on on the stage. At first it seemed that a painter in his studio was imagining the scenes he was painting, but then things happened that did not make sense, like for instance the appearance of devil-looking creatures jumping onto the stage. Only after I found a description of the production on the Internet, I learned that they were gargoyles from Notre Dame.

Reducing the Bartholomew Night's Massacre to the painter pouring out red paint on the plastic drop cloth was just lame. Naked models mingling with red-robed cardinals were ridiculous. Etc.

I think when an opera company decides to stage a rarely performed work, it should stick closer to the original idea and keep it simple. Tobias Kratzer created a jumble that was at times attractive, but mostly distracted from the singing.

Yannis Pousporikas gave a strong leadership to the orchestra with sensitivity for the singers. In terms of singing, women in general were better than men, with the exception of Jérôme Varnier's impressive Marcel.

One has to congratulate Nice for staging a rarely produced opera. It's always a risk, but worth taking.