thu 12/12/2024

Opera reviews, news and interviews

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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic team of arts and culture writers went ahead with an ambitious plan – to launch a dedicated internet site devoted to coverage of the UK arts scene.

La rondine, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - sumptuous orchestral playing in an underrated score

Alexandra Coghlan

There are no battlement leaps or murderous vows, no pistols or daggers, not so much as a slight cough disturbs the serene plot of La rondine – the Puccini opera once labelled a “poor man’s Traviata”.

 

L’étoile, RNCM, Manchester review - lavish and...

Robert Beale

Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile is not exactly a French farce, but it comes from a post-Offenbach era (1877 saw its premiere) when cheerful absurdity...

The Pirates of Penzance, English National Opera...

David Nice

“Comedy is a serious thing,” quoth David Garrick. Gilbert and Sullivan knew it, and so does Mike Leigh, having bequeathed to ENO a clear and unfussy...

Rigoletto, Irish National Opera / Murrihy,...

David Nice

How many Rigolettos have regular operagoers among you sat through where there wasn’t some major defect, in either the production or the three major...

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The Elixir of Love, English National Opera review - a tale of two halves

David Nice

Flat first act, livelier second, singers not always helped by conductor and director

The Sound Voice Project, Linbury Theatre review - an art installation that has strayed into an opera house

Alexandra Coghlan

A worthy project fails to ignite as art

The Tales of Hoffmann, Royal Opera review - three-headed monster feels baggier than ever

David Nice

Offenbach left multiple choices for his swansong, but this production lacks the key

Rigoletto, English National Opera review - another hit for Miller's Mob

Boyd Tonkin

More tragic than gimmicky, this classic staging can still succeed

theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - let's make three operas

David Nice

Donizetti triumphs, with help from Bernstein, Rossini, two stars and director Orpha Phelan

Albert Herring, Scottish Opera review - fun, frivolity, and fine music-making

Miranda Heggie

A witty production of Britten's clever comedy that's bound to leave you smiling

Le nozze di Figaro, The Mozartists, Page, Cadogan Hall review - cogency, intelligence and reverence

Ed Vulliamy

A celebration of Mozart from the supreme stylists

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Opera North review - one of the best and funniest

Robert Beale

Perspex and bubblewrap for a Sixties take on Britten's Shakespeare

The Turn of the Screw, English National Opera review - Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved

David Nice

Pity and terror in Ailish Tynan’s anguished Governess and Isabella Bywater’s production

Trouble in Tahiti/A Quiet Place, Linbury Theatre review - top cast plays unhappy families

David Nice

Mini-masterpiece and splashy sequel carried off with as much conviction as they can take

Blond Eckbert, English Touring Opera review - dark deeds afoot in the woods

Bernard Hughes

Judith Weir’s chamber opera explores Freudian themes through a modern lens

The Marrriage of Figaro, Opera Project, Tobacco Factory, Bristol review - small is beautiful indeed

Mark Kidel

Mozart opera in the round delivers intimacy and joy

Béatrice et Bénédict, Irish National Opera, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - sung and spoken triumph

David Nice

Shakespeare from Fiona Shaw ballasts superbly performed Berlioz

Il trittico, Welsh National Opera review - welcome back (but not a good sign)

Stephen Walsh

Cast changes but no drop in quality

The Snowmaiden, English Touring Opera review - a rich harvest with modest means

Boyd Tonkin

Human warmth, and musical wealth, in Rimsky-Korsakov's fairy-tale

Suor Angelica, English National Opera review - isolated one-acter lacks emotional inscaping

David Nice

Annilese Miskimmon’s mix of nuns and girls in trouble isn’t new, and not intense enough

The Magic Flute, Opera North review - a fresh vision of Mozart’s masterpiece

Robert Beale

Projected imagery and light sabers in story seen through a child’s eyes

Eugene Onegin, Royal Opera review - the heart left cold

David Nice

Promising youth trapped between exaggerated conducting and cool production

First Person: soprano Elizabeth Atherton on the decimation of the classical music sector in Wales

Elizabeth Atherton

Singer who began her career on contract with Welsh National Opera clarifies savage cuts by Welsh and English Arts Councils

Rigoletto, Welsh National Opera review - back to what they do best

Stephen Walsh

Debauchery vulgarised but the music stays pure

Prom 68, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Garsington Opera review - eerie beauty sometimes faintly glittering

David Nice

Strong cast and top orchestra project as best they can in a fine company's first Proms visit

La traviata, Royal Opera review - a charismatic soprano in a serviceable revival

Alexandra Coghlan

Richard Eyre's classic production looks great but lacks fizz

Prom 52, Carmen, Glyndebourne Festival review - fine-tuning a masterpiece

David Nice

No loss of vivid focus as the Albert Hall becomes Bar Lillas Pastia

Verdi's Requiem / Capriccio, Edinburgh International Festival 2024 review - words, music, judgement

Simon Thompson

Philharmonia Orchestra closes the festival with grandeur and intimacy

Footnote: a brief history of opera in Britain

Britain has world-class opera companies in the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera North, not to mention the celebrated country-house festival at Glyndebourne and others elsewhere. The first English opera was an experiment in 1656, as Civil War raged between Cromwell and Charles II, and it was under the restored king that theatre and opera exploded in London. Henry Purcell composed the masterpiece Dido and Aeneas (for a girls' school) and over the next century Handel, Gluck, J C Bach and Haydn came to London to compose Italian-style classical operas.

Hogarth_Beggars_Opera_1731_cTateHowever, the imported style was challenged by the startling success of John Gay's low-life street opera The Beggar's Opera (1728), a score collating 69 folk ballads, which set off a wave of indigenous popular musical theatre (pictured, William Hogarth's The Beggar's Opera, 1731, © Tate). Gay built the first Covent Garden opera house (1732), where three of Handel's operas were premiered, and musical theatre and vaudeville flourished as an alternative to opera. Through the 19th century, London became a hub for visiting composers and grand opera stars, but from the meshing of "high" and "popular" creativity at Sadler's Wells (built in 1765) evolved in time a distinct English tradition of wit and social satire in the "Savoy" operas of Gilbert and Sullivan.

In the 20th century Benjamin Britten's dramatic operas such as Peter Grimes and Billy Budd reflected a different sort of ordinariness, his genius driving the formation of the English Opera Group at Aldeburgh. English opera, and opera in English, became central to the establishment, after the Second World War, of a national arts infrastructure, with subsidised resident companies at English National Opera and the Royal Opera. By the 1950s, due to pressure from international opera stars refusing to learn roles in English, Covent Garden joined the circuit of major international houses, staging opera in their original languages, with visiting stars such as Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi and the young Luciano Pavarotti matched by home-grown ones like Joan Sutherland and Geraint Evans.

Today British opera thrives with a reputation for fresh thinking in classics, from new productions of Mozart, Verdi and Wagner landmarks to new opera commissions and popular arena stagings of Carmen. The Arts Desk brings you the fastest overnight reviews and the quickest ticket booking links for last night's openings, as well as the most thoughtful close-up interviews with major creative figures and performers. Our critics include Igor Toronyi-Lalic, David Nice, Edward Seckerson, Alexandra Coghlan, Graham Rickson and Ismene Brown.

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