by Anita Rieu-Sicart 

Opera buffs ~ and they increase exponentially each year ~ will travel far and wide to indulge their passion.

Perhaps American opera buffs should try coming to the South of France, which offers them a richly variegated choice of opera houses, from modern to rich 19th century Belle Epoque, offering immensely varied productions, performances and stars.  They can indulge their passion, without totally maxing out their holiday budget for the year, because opera is heavily subsidized in France, on the whole ticket prices can be reasonable, compared to Britain, and are not a king's ransom as in London, at Covent Garden, or at Bayreuth.  And, all over the winter spring season there will be a choice of reasonable hotels from which to choose.  Winter to Spring is not a bad time to visit this region ~ no crowds and reasonably mild weather on the coast.

Just think, there are opera houses at Montpellier, Marseille, Toulon, Nice, and Monte Carlo (the jewel in the crown).  Do the names excite you?  They should.

If one extended just beyond the French borders, one could start an exciting Opera Tour by flying in to Barcelona, Spain, starting at the Liceu Opera House, which fronts directly on Las Ramblas; it tends to go in for quite original and innovative productions.  Then fly out of Genova Genoa), Italy's major and rather ugly seaport, but which has a technically sophisticates opera house just five minutes walk from the old sea harbor and offers some notable productions.

The Liceu, Barcelona, was destroyed by fire three times, just like La Fenice in Venice.  And, like La Fenice, it rose again from its ashes, , with the auditorium recreated as almost exact replicas of their originals.  Catastrophic fires did tend to be a fate for some opera houses ~ something to do with ancient lighting systems.

Or, one could fly into Paris, then take the fast train south: the TGV that gets one from Paris to Marseille in three hours. Of course, one can fly directly into Nice or Marseille and also into the very delightful small airport of Toulon-Hyères from Paris.  It is quite easy to do a tour from Marseille via train along the coast.  Trains are comfortable and fast, and timetables and prices can all be looked up and booked via www.sncf.fr or www.raileurope.com. Or rent a car, and take your time enjoying a variety of side trips off the main track.

Montpellier to the west of Marseille boasts the L'Opéra Comédie on Place de la Comédie, with an imposing façade and the 1200-seat Grande Salle.  It was rebuilt after three fires, the first in 1785, that damaged earlier structures.  The last fire in 1881 completely destroyed the opéra house.  Inaugurated in 1888, the Opéra Comédie is a large Italian theater and the work of architect Joseph-Marie Cassien-Bernard (1848-1926), who was a pupil of Charles Garnier of Paris Opéra fame.  Across the way you will see a magnificent modern pink marble theater, Le Corum, designed by Strasbourg architect Claude Vasconi, the mastermind of Les Halles Forum in Paris.  Its Salle Berlioz can seat up to 2000 people, and two smaller rooms have a combined capacity of another 1000 seats.

Incidentally, one way of checking out or buying tickets for all sorts of performances is via the French www.FNAC.com agency.  You might pay an extra fee, but it could be timesaving and useful.

The train journey between Marseille and Montpellier does involve at least one change, possibly two, something to be taken into consideration in any tour plan. One other useful note about Montpellier, if driving there, do get a really good map of the city centre with all its one-way streets marked up.  Otherwise, you might wind up in tears, trying desperately to find your way through its labyrinth!  Montpellier is a very modern city, academic, and with a university campus hosting most of France's pharmaceutical companies and research institutions, who very likely are the Opera's main supporters.

Then one comes to the Marseille Opera House ~ municipal at one level, and grand at every other level ~ its imposing colonnaded front gazes down over Marseille and its harbor.  It, too, suffered from fire, and its interior was totally destroyed to be rebuilt in 1924.

Marseille, like Monte Carlo, has the big bucks to pay for major performers, and so one will find its program includes a recital by Nathalie Dessay (singing Michel Legrand) in December and, for example, in July Berlioz's Les Troyens featuring opera mega star Roberto Alagna, as Enée, and Beatrice Uria-Monzon, as Didon.  Tickets for the Alagna performances €25 to €90.  It is France's second city, and this year declared the European Capital of Culture, bursting into a plethora of art exhibitions, displays, street festivals as never before.   It all started off in January with every bell rung to the rafters city wide to announce this wonderful year, as 'a great clamor'.  To find out all about the entertainment, street art, activities, exhibitions, dip into the dedicated web site www.mp2013.fr and voila!

From Marseille it is just a hop up the coast to Toulon, less than an hour by train, France's Naval seaport and home to the naval dockyards.   It is a mainly blue collar working town, but is home to a delightful, and my favorite, opera house.   Built 150 years ago, around 1860, its neo-Baroque/Belle Epoque interior is a total delight for me, its walls decorated with superb murals, featuring buxom, apple cheeked, one would think Italian, ladies festooned with flowers and offering garlands and baskets of fruits ~ perhaps an echo of the past when Italians from Piedmont flooded into France for work.

Just off the main drag it sits at the beginning of the pedestrian old quarter of Toulon, just about five minutes from the harbor, surrounded by sentinel tall palm trees on either side ~ and restaurants.  If one is lucky sometimes a bar is opened on a top terrace overlooking the harbor, over the ships and ferries that ply to Corsica. 0ne sees the blue Mediterranean, quite an enchanting sight; otherwise the bar on the first delights with its buxom lady murals. A few years ago, I attended a performance of Kurt Weill's rarely performed Street Scenes sung in English.  In February they and the Opera-Theatre of Metz, put on a production of Stephen Sondheim's superbly melancholy musical Follies.
                 TOULON OPÉRA                                                                                                                                 OPÉRA DE NICE

Leaving Toulon one can catch a train for Nice, a trip that takes slightly over two hours.  The Opéra de Nice was designed in stone and steel by Niçoise architect François Aune, a student of Gustave Eiffel, the famous pioneer of steel structure.  Aune had the guidance of Charles Garnier who designed the Paris Opera house, now called the Palais Garnier, and the Opéra de Nice opened in 1885, with a performance of Aida.  Conventional and charming, it sits in the middle of the old quarter of Nice, whose ochre and russet buildings echo the architecture of Italy, not surprisingly, as Nice was for a long time part of the Kingdom of Savoy.  Seating 1093 people, the Opéra de Nice today hosts quality programs of opera as well as concerts, and the ballet company has been expanding its repertoire to meet the demands of dance lovers. The Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, with its 98 musicians, is considered one of the best orchestras in the province. Upcoming is Mozart's Magic Flute, and Puccini's Madame Butterfly.  Tickets range from €12 to €78.

Nice to Monte Carlo is only twenty minutes by train to the real opera jewel of the region: the Monte Carlo Opéra.  Designed by Charles Garnier, in 1879 it tends to be known as the Salle Garnier to distinguish it from Garnier's later Paris design and is his triumph as it is his version of a truly luxurious theater for the rich.  As one patron told me who has had an abonnement (subscription) for the past twenty-four years, it is an exquisite jewel of a traditional Opéra House in miniature ~ great, tall, red velvet curtains against the tall windows towards the sea (which close for the performance), cherubs and gold and gold cherubs everywhere ~ it was all totally renovated, totally true to the original style in 2005  with comfortable seats except for the strapontins (pull down jump seats like those found in the métro).   Monaco attracts the most renowned singers for its annual Season, beginning in November; and the standard of performance is very high. Often known as the Casino building, one walks through the lobby for the opera; gaming is on the upper floor.

However, sometimes when opera sets are large, and perhaps a production attracting larger audiences, performances are staged in the rather ugly Forum, which is the multi-purpose concrete monstrosity between the sea and the avenue Princesse Grace, which holds goodness knows how many thousands more than the real Opéra House. Architecturally, this building (inside and out) can only have been designed by an architect who had chronic indigestion. The only way to avoid that as a member of the audience, is to totally ignore the environment and concentrate on the stage.  This season both Cecilia Bartoli and Bryn Terfel will be giving concerts.   And tickets are reasonable, up to €50.

Do audiences dress up? Perhaps in Marseille and certainly Monte Carlo they might, but on the whole audiences tend to be pretty laid back, and undressy.  And while touring one does not need to miss the live cinema performances in HD direct from the Met, Lincoln Centre, New York, as these incredible opera performances will be playing at cinemas in all these towns.  One just has to check venues out at www.metopera.org/hdlive and www.cielecran.com, but tickets for these one off shows, tend to sell out fast.

One can scoop up lots of art culture along the way.  It is well worth taking a side trip to St. Tropez, say by bus from Toulon, or via ferry across the golf of St. Tropez from St. Raphael, to visit the it's small Annonciade Museum right on the port, which has a small, superb and choice permanent collection, featuring many artists from around 1900 onwards: Fauvists, Nabilists ~  Bonnard, Maillol, Derain, Seurat and Signac.  It is featuring a temporary exhibition to March devoted to Paul Signac, whose family still lives in the region.

Then there are the Museum of Asiatic Arts and the Naval Museum in Toulon, the Chagall and Matisse Museums in Nice, the recently opened Bonnard Museum in Cagnes, and also a new Museum devoted to Cocteau in Menton.

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