Opera Features
Royal Opera House lullabies for Little AmalTuesday, 26 October 2021
“I want to tell her that people will be good,” Tewodros Aregawe of Phosphoros Theatre confided to us as Little Amal closed her eyes on the giant bed made up for her in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, “that all the people with kind eyes who have walked alongside her and listened to her story will be louder than those who wish she wasn’t there”. Read more... |
'Rest now, you God': remembering bass-baritone Norman Bailey (1933-2021)Friday, 24 September 2021
Few singers really change your life. Norman Bailey did that for me [writes David Nice of theartsdesk]. Read more... |
Summer seasons in a Covid world: five opera company movers and shakers reflectTuesday, 14 September 2021
The bleakest time of all for live music during the Covid crisis came in the first four and a half months of this year. Read more... |
Remembering Graham Vick (1953-2021) - top colleagues on one of the greatest opera directorsSaturday, 21 August 2021
Five weeks have passed since the death of opera director Graham Vick from complications due to Covid-19, shocking even to those of us (un)prepared for the worst, and yet so many of us think about him every day. Read more... |
First Person: conductor Enrique Mazzola on Verdi's time-travelling 'Luisa Miller'Friday, 30 July 2021
It is difficult to know why some operas succeed while others remain unknown. The reasons can be emotional or historical, or it might be as simple as a poor cast who couldn’t quite launch the opera into the stars. In the case of Luisa Miller, we have the perfect example of a masterpiece which has been a little bit neglected. Read more... |
Christa Ludwig, 1928-2021: a selective tributeFriday, 07 May 2021
I only saw Christa Ludwig twice live in concert, but those appearances epitomise her incredible dramatic and vocal rage as well as her peerless artistry in everything she did. The first event was Schubert’s Winterreise with pianist Charles Spencer at the Southbank Centre, at a time when it was less common for women to take on the role of the heavy-hearted wayfarer: the intensity still resonates. Read more... |
First Person: Anna Lucia Richter on Monteverdi and a transition from soprano to mezzoSaturday, 13 March 2021
It’s actually quite a strange feeling to know that my CD Il delirio della passione is now out. I recorded this amazing, all-embracing Monteverdi project with Luca Pianca and Ensemble Claudiana over a year ago, in January 2020. That was another world, another time. Read more... |
Classical musicians on life after Brexit - 4: singers speak outThursday, 11 February 2021
Forget the pandemic, it's Brexit which could ring the death knell for artists who are currently hoarse from begging to be taken seriously as a respected export. Read more... |
First Person(s): soprano Susan Bullock and baritone William Dazeley on filming Britten’s Owen WingraveFriday, 11 December 2020
Two of the singers in an ambitious project to film Britten’s opera based on a Henry James story – part timeless tale of repressive tradition which chimed with the composer's pacifist beliefs, part ghost story – which was originally “made for television” and premiered on the BBC, give their impressions close to the time of... Read more... |
‘Our whole industry is supported by vulnerable freelance creators': Chen Reiss on the artist in a time of CoronavirusMonday, 23 November 2020
I am not the first to say this, and I won’t be the last, but what a strange year 2020 has become! Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Royal Opera House lullabies for Little Amal
“I want to tell her that people will be good,” Tewodros Aregawe of Phosphoros Theatre confided to us as Little Amal closed her eyes on the giant...
Vanara, Hackney Empire review - fine singing, but a plodding...
Two tribes, both alike in dignity in fair Vanara, trade goods and insults in a post-apocalyptic world in which fire is known to The...
Invasion, Apple TV+ review - sci-fi epic or a pile of space...
Conceived on a global scale to depict the enormity of an alien...
Blu-ray: The Damned
One German writer found a neat yet teasing way to sum up the difference between...
The Rake's Progress, Glyndebourne Tour - a classic revi...
Tom Rakewell Esquire, the Glyndebourne edition...
All Creatures Great and Small, Series 2, Channel 5 review -...
Channel 5’ s decision to remake James Herriot’s much-...
Field Music, Francis Lung, Electric Ballroom review - neithe...
Forty five minutes into their set Field Music play “A House is Not a Home”, from their 2006 second album Tones of Town. An hour in, “Them...
Delepelaire, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review...
“What a lovely sound that was!” declared Music Director Thomas Søndergård, bounding onto the podium of the Usher Hall. He was referring, of course...
Album: They Might Be Giants - BOOK
“We’ve always tossed in some super-dire, high-voltage, death-trip lyrics that offset the merriment of a melody,” John Flansburgh of They Might Be...
