In January 2020 we had happily announced three, at the time upcoming, opera-commitments of Patrick Kabongo. However, not more than one of these survived: Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Tours Opera, the two others being swept away by the virus. The summer came and with it more cancellation of performance planning throughout the opera world. For Patrick the result was another opera production lost, this time with the Rossini-Festival in Bad Wildbad (Germany). In autumn he moreover lost the opportunity of making his overseas-debut (Don Pasquale at the Québec Opera).

For January 2021 Patrick had been engaged by the Nice Opera concerning the lovely part of George Brown within François-Adrien Boieldieu’s opéra-comique La dame blanche which had its world-premiere in Paris in 1825. Once again, due to health restrictions, the staged version as originally intended needed to be resigned and postponed to January 2022. However, not to relinquish the enormous rehearsal effort of everyone involved, the theatre-management decided to make at least a semi-staged version for a stream possible: without an audience, thus for cameras only, with the orchestra on stage and the soloists singing and acting (still without theatre-costumes) in front of the orchestra. The result can now be witnessed on the Opéra de Nice YouTube channel where it will remain available until end of April.

Link to the streaming of La dame blanche

27.01.21