SHORT TAKES : ‘People’s Opera’ Curtain to Rise

France’s troubled Bastille Opera house is to raise the curtain on its first production next March but close its opera hall three months later for further technical fine-tuning.

Directors of the new “People’s Opera” commissioned by President Francois Mitterrand said today that the inaugural “mini-season” will feature two operas, concerts and recitals by some of the world’s leading singers.

Mitterrand ordered the building of a high-tech opera house to bring the art to the people in 1982. It was to have opened to a full season for the bicentenary of the French Revolution last July but was held up by political bickering and technical hitches.