fri 29/03/2024

Rossini

Tara Erraught, Ulrich Pluta, James Baillieu, Wigmore Hall

As a scan through the 17-year list of Rosenblatt Recitals quickly reveals, sopranos and tenors come and (often as not) go. Much rarer is the opportunity to enjoy the gifts of a mezzo-soprano near the start of what should, all things being equal, be...

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Juan Diego Flórez, Vincenzo Scalera, Symphony Hall, Birmingham

“Who says Mozart is not like Rossini?” remarked Juan Diego Flórez, about a quarter of an hour into his debut recital at Symphony Hall. “There are seven high Cs in this aria.” And with a flicker of notes from the pianist Vincenzo Scalera, he was off...

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ENO's Marvellous Miller in pictures

It should have been unmodified rapture: a gathering of English National Opera team members old and new celebrating the doyen of the company's best-selling productions. And, as has always happened with the artistic side of the company, this loving...

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Prom 68: Semiramide, OAE, Elder

Between the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra it has been a big week at the Proms, in every sense. Scope and scale have been the watchwords for the orchestral tectonics that have taken place, the...

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Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Glyndebourne

"We're off to Glyndebourne, to see a ra-ther bor-ing op-ra by Rosseeeni," quoth songwriting wags Kit and the Widow. So here it was at the Sussex house after a 34-year absence, the most famous of all his operas which includes the overture’s oboe tune...

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The Barber of Seville, Welsh National Opera

The latest themed season from WNO, to add to their fallen women, Donizetti queens and what not, goes by the slightly worrying title (for anyone with a short attention span) of “Figaro Forever”, and consists of an operatic sequence derived from...

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Guillaume Tell, Royal Opera

There are two operatic types who should leave Rossini’s epic swansong for the stage well alone. One would usually be a conductor who ignores many of the notes written by a master at the height of his powers, since even the least dramatic numbers...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Ruperto Chapí, Rossini, Walton

 Ruperto Chapí: String Quartets 1 and 2 Cuarteto Latinoamericano (Sono Luminus)Think string quartet and you tend to think Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart. Maybe Bartók and Shostakovich. But generally something respectable, well-behaved and Northern...

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Moses in Egypt, Welsh National Opera

So easily parcelled up as a master of opera buffa, Rossini is a composer who constantly surprises by the emotional and intellectual range of his best work. William Tell, which opened WNO’s current season three weeks ago, is a major progenitor of...

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William Tell, Welsh National Opera

A few months ago, while looking something up about Liszt’s piano piece “Chapelle de Guillaume Tell,” I discovered to my horror that William Tell – like Robin Hood – may never have existed. Even the apple, like the one in Genesis (there is no apple...

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Guglielmo Tell, Teatro Regio Torino, Noseda, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

First, confessions. I’m the dance critic here at theartsdesk. Yes, this is a review of a concert performance of an opera, and no, I haven’t picked up a detailed knowledge of Rossini’s oeuvre as a byproduct of my education in pirouettes and Pina...

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The Barber of Seville, Longborough Festival

Speaking from the stage before curtain-up on The Barber, Longborough’s founder and chairman, Martin Graham, stressed the hard work put in by director Richard Studer and conductor Jonathan Lyness on their two 2014 productions, this one and Tosca. He...

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