Camera Lucida

Go inside the building that has been the source of some of the greatest moments in music, ballet and opera.

Man has always sought to seek further afield. After the seafaring explorers of the 16th century, 21st century cosmologists today navigate more celestial oceans, with each mission providing an ever-broader and more impressive cartography of our surroundings. At the avant garde of modern technology, these strange travellers are actually immobile, and their vessels are powerful and spectacular telescopes, on the Earth or in space, constantly widening the limits of our knowledge and giving form to our dreams of infinity. From Hawaii to Australia, via South Africa and China, we set out on an incredible scientific and human adventure to visit the planet's greatest cosmic exploration centres to discover the new challenges involved in understanding the universe. A journey on Earth and in the heavens that will take your breath away!

Accompanied by a child, the mathematician Galileo observes the firmament with a telescope. Ten years ago, the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned in Rome for having supported the idea of an infinite and centerless universe, based on the work of Copernicus. By dint of observations and calculations, Galileo seeks proofs for his hypothesis of a cosmic system where the Earth is "an ordinary celestial body, one among thousands". From Padua to Venice, the mathematician shakes certainties by confronting the power of a Church which wishes to maintain its absolute power in the "crystal spheres" where Ptolemy has hitherto locked up the world.

The prodigious genesis of a monument of world literature, too often reduced to its popular success, also recounts the tormented conversion of its author, Victor Hugo, to the ideal of social progress.

In 1965 Ingmar Bergman filmed “Persona”, the cult film that brought together all of the Swedish filmmaker’s obsessions and became a turning point in his career.

The Philharmonie de Paris celebrates its tenth anniversary and invites Klaus Mäkelä and Gustavo Dudamel to perform a concert of changing colours, from modernism to impressionism, with works by Boulez, Beethoven, Poulenc, Moussorgski and Ravel.

The 82-year-old Japanese Seiji Ozawa is one of the last remaining conductor legends of a golden era. Portrait of the ambitious maestro and educator who made the western repertoire really well known in Japan.

Boris Vian was a man of many interests and talents. He played the trumpet, wrote criticism, essays, novels, poems and plays, did some painting and sculpting. Philippe Kohly chooses to recount Boris Vian’s life through his love for jazz, his quest for freedom, his taste for celebration.

From Jean Monnet's idea of a transnational European army to the abolition of customs borders, seven years behind the scenes towards the Treaty of Rome. A docu-fiction "embedded" in the great and small histories of Europe.

For their final concert on Les Chemins de Bach, Raphaël Pichon and the Pygmalion ensemble perform Bach's short masses and motets in Arnstadt's Bachkirche.

Founded in 2012 by Laurence Equilbey, the Insula Orchestra performs on period instruments and experiments with new concert formats. In summer 2018, the French conductor and her ensemble will present a little-known work by Mozart at the Parisian cultural center La Seine Musicale: the incidental music to "Thamos, King in Egypt". In 1773, the author Tobias Philipp Freiherr von Gebler asked his fellow Freemason Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to compose incidental music for his heroic drama "Thamos, King of Egypt". The boy wonder composed two choruses and five interludes for the play, which took up the Egyptian theme popular in the 18th century.

Slovenian conductor Martina Batič and the Radio France Choir offers an eclectic programme combining Wagner, Debussy, Fauré and Poulenc. The choir is accompanied by eight cellists from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio de France.

Father Jean-Claude Barreau, 39, announced in September 1971 his decision to marry. This announcement would have a considerable impact due to the notoriety he had acquired as a best-selling author. 40 years later, his daughter Chloé looks back on this story that marked her family and questions yesterday's and today's society on a matter that is still relevant: the priests' vow of celibacy.

In 1965, Bob Dylan recorded "Like a Rolling Stone", one of the greatest songs of all time... A recreation of a show given by the troupe of the Comedie-Francaise from the book of Greil Marcus.

Melody Gardot performs her new album Sunset in the Blue, from the Radio France studios accompanied by a trio of musicians and 40 instrumentalists from the in-house orchestra.