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

PARIS —  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.