Gounod’s Faust was the first opera I ever saw, and I saw it at Palais…
Based in Batignolles 5: Same Dish, Different Preparation
We once taste-tested lobster rolls in Maine and coastal New Hampshire. Somewhat to our surprise, the most famous joint did not provide the best. A few days into this trip, we realized a similar project was underway. Having shoehorned ourselves out of those coach-class...Based in Batignolles 4: Love Locked Down
The novelist Federico Mocci (b. 1963) published a story in 2006 called Ho Voglia di Te (“I want you”), some variation on the star-crossed lovers theme, in which a doomed pair affix a lock to the Milvian Bridge in the northern suburbs of Rome as a symbol of their...
Based in Batignolles 3: Beyond the Pale
Apparently, our neighborhood does not exist. Consult a tourist guide like Eyewitness Paris and there is an empty white space where one might expect to find Batignolles. The teal-green blob of Montmartre floats in a void separate from the colors that identify the...
Based in Batignolles 2: One Thing After Another
Gounod’s Faust was the first opera I ever saw, and I saw it at Palais Charles Garnier in Paris in March 1970. As we ascended the massive stair forty-eight years later, studied Marc Chagall’s rainbow of a ceiling and gazed out over the loggia outside the ornate Grand...