Les Journaux

Cultural news bits from the European press.

Conductor Seiji Ozawa was inducted as a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts on Wednesday, taking the seat of Yehudi Menuhin, which had been empty for almost ten years. As Hugues Gall, former director of the Opéra national de Paris, explained at the ceremony, Ozawa was actually elected in October 2001. Not surprisingly, Gall included prominently, in his enumeration of Ozawa's triumph, his leadership at the podium in Paris for the 1983 premiere of Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. In his remarks, Ozawa recalled his first trip to Paris, as an employee of the Japanese company that made the Rabbit scooter. Following the verbal tribute, there was a musical one, as "the young violinist ­Agata Scymczewska gave a final hommage to Menuhin. A most rare thing: two Bach partitas were played under the Coupole, while the sunlight came to rest on the face of an obviously moved Henri Dutilleux." [Le Figaro]

The Château du Petit Trianon has opened again, after a year-long restoration, to install new decorations to recreate the setting as it was during the life of Marie-Antoinette. The monument will reopen officially on October 2, to commemorate the arrival of the revolutionaries at Versailles to seize Marie-Antoinette. "When the rioters arrived at the gate, the queen was walking, so a valet informed her that she had to go back and then leave," said Pierre-André Lablaude. "We intended to stop history at that moment, as if saying to visitors, The queen is not here, let's take advantage of that." [Le Figaro]