Rabaud: Mârouf, savetier du Caire ****
Opéra Comique, Paris, 23rd April 2018
Open Sesame! Ali Baba, Aladdin and the adventures of Sinbad have transfixed generations, but very few tales from The Arabian Nights have successfully crossed the footlights onto the operatic stage. In 1898, Ravel composed an ouverture de féerie but never fulfilled his intention of writing an opera to follow it. Ballets Russes performances of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade – starring Vaslav Nijinsky as the Golden Slave – fired imaginations in Paris in 1910. Among them was Henri Rabaud who set the minor tale of Ma’aruf, a poor cobbler from Cairo, for the Opéra Comique.
Vannina Santoni (Princess Saamcheddine) and Jean-Sébastien Bou (Mârouf)
© Vincent Pontet
Read the full review on Bachtrack.