Bicycling to see Ben Heppner at the Opera de Paris

I've rediscovered the Velib Paris bicycle system and the pleasure is as great as it was first time round. This time I was heading out to see Ben Heppner in recital at the Palais Garnier and realized that by the time I'd got on the metro I would never make it. So I grabbed a bike at one of the three bike stations at Bastille and whizzed off along the Rue de Rivoli - then right onto the Avenue de l'Opera, left the bike at the station just behind the Palais Garnier and ran  into the theatre.

I like Ben Heppner better in concert. He's a great Wagnerian and his voice rides happily over a vast opulent orchestra. But if I have to have  Ben Heppner in recital I'd rather it were  somewhere like Seattle where last year, after some serious songs, he took off his tie and glasses and gave us some standards and talked to his audience and made us laugh and cry. The man has a personality and humour as big as his voice but it wasn't on display in Paris where he seemed more intent on  showing his versatility in an over-stuffed programme. We got Schubert Lieder, Strauss songs, a big chunk of Britten, Duparc, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini. And yes, Ben Heppner can still sing lied, bel canto, Verdi, elegant French songs and Verismo but Ben Heppner can also knock us out of our seats with Tristan's death or Siegmund's Winterstorm. For anyone familiar with either of those, this evening felt subdued and a little flat.

I Hate Fauchon!

This is a sad state of affairs for once I loved Paris's fabled food store at the Madeleine. I could never afford it but still it was fun to go in and look at 'smoked salmon millefeuille' or a turquoise blue eclair ("vanille et menthe glaciale")  that only a French pastry chef could get away with. 

Then they remodelled. They picked pink - shocking pink. This has been a trend lately - Hediard across the way has been red for years - more recently and quite disastrously, dear old Fortnum and Mason's in London decided to go turquoise. In all three cases this means that rows and rows of identical boxes are placed on shelves. Hundreds of pink (or red or turquoise) tea caddies line up on shelves just across from hundreds of pink (or red or turquoise) chocolate boxes. I can think of nothing less tempting to the consumer.  Big blocks of one colour. That's it. That's all.  So, the pleasure of Fauchon has long gone but yesterday, tired and footsore, I thought that their relatively new teashop upstairs might merit a visit. I steeled myself to pay 5 euros for a cup of tea - it's a scandalous 4 euros elsewhere so I factored in the Fauchon extra and headed upstairs. The place is dull and cold - wispy and grey was the impression I had. And the tea costs 10 EUROS!!!!!!

What is it with Paris and tea? What do they think that we think that they are doing back there in the kitchen? Anybody who has drunk tea in Paris knows that they are turning on the hot water tap and running it over a sad sachet of tea factory floor sweepings. Now, I grant that Fauchon may have actually gone out and bought real tea, may even be serving it in loose leaf form but 10 Euros??? Ten euros is about £6. 50. 

I headed off to Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli - expensive too but still elegant and with a uniquely rich, dark hot chocolate at 6 Euros 50, I felt that I'd made 3.50 euros.