Opera Reviews

Death in Venice, Garsington Opera

David Nice Monday, 22 June 2015

Lagoon, miasma and scirocco may seem as far away as you can get from the rolling hills and pleasant airs of the Wormsley Estate in deepest home counties territory. Nor are the bleached bones of Britten’s bleak if ultimately transformative operatic swansong the usual culinary fare many punters might have expected to go with their fine wines and gourmet picnics.

La Traviata: Love, Death and Divas, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Sunday, 21 June 2015

Verdi's La Traviata has become one of the best-loved and most-performed works in the operatic repertoire, but this is no thanks to sections of the English press.

Samson et Dalila, Grange Park Opera

Sebastian Scotney Sunday, 21 June 2015

From “Printemps qui Commence“ (spring is beginning) to “Springtime for Hitler"... that really is quite some intellectual leap. Patrick Mason, an experienced and respected opera director, has uprooted the tale of Saint-Saëns's opera from biblical Gaza, and has placed the first two acts in France somewhere around the time of Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion, with Warsaw ghetto overtones.

Tristan und Isolde, Longborough Festival

stephen Walsh Wednesday, 17 June 2015

It’s well-known that Wagner shelved The Ring two thirds of the way through in favour of Tristan with the aim of producing something that could be put on quickly in a conventional theatre. Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way. Yet Tristan, for all its technical difficulties, does lend itself to a relatively small stage. Its ensemble scenes are few and manageable, and for the rest it’s basically a conversation piece.

Comment

Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Glyndebourne

David Nice Sunday, 14 June 2015

What a difference seven years can make to a budding genius. Mozart’s La finta giardiniera (1775) has only patches of brilliance, and last year’s Glyndebourne production, despite musical excellence, failed them all.

Comment

Don Giovanni, Royal Opera

alexandra Coghlan Saturday, 13 June 2015

2013 was the year that pop fans were forced to ponder the ethics of “Blurred Lines”. In 2014 classical fans followed suit, when Kasper Holten’s Royal Opera Don Giovanni unapologetically redrew the map of sexual boundaries. Suddenly Donna Anna was sneaking off for a quickie with the Don while her beloved laboriously declaimed “Dalla sua pace” – a willing partner (along with Elvira, Zerlina and all other women to hand) rather than a victim.

Comment

Flight, Opera Holland Park

alexandra Coghlan Thursday, 11 June 2015

Connections are missed and made in Jonathan Dove’s Flight – a giddy airport fantasy of what might be and what never was. Not yet 20 years old, this contemporary score is quite a departure from Opera Holland Park’s staple fare of well-aged verismo and bloodily rare Italian drama, but in a glossy new production by Stephen Barlow it pulses with all the same urgency and human interest – and not a suicide/secret pregnancy/long-lost parent in sight.

A Country Doctor, Phaedra, Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Peter Quantrill Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Of the two works by Hans Werner Henze on this curious if ultimately satisfying double-bill, neither quite answers to the name of opera.

Intermezzo, Garsington Opera

David Nice Sunday, 07 June 2015

In a curious deal, two operatic card games were running almost simultaneously last night.

The Queen of Spades, English National Opera

alexandra Coghlan Sunday, 07 June 2015

The delicacy of its supernatural elements make Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades, as adapted by Tchaikovsky, a tricky proposition for any director. Do you go with the ghost story and risk losing your audience emotionally, or do you play it straight, trying to rationalise the plot’s moments of macabre? The hands of the clock stand perpetually arrested just moments before midnight in David Alden’s new production for ENO, putting his audience out of any doubt as to which he has chosen.