Opera Reviews

Eugene Onegin, English National Opera

David Nice Sunday, 13 November 2011

What’s not to love about Tchaikovsky’s candid, lyric scenes drawn from Pushkin’s masterly verse novel? ENO’s advance publicity summed it up neatly by promising “lost love, tragedy, regret”. We’ve most of us been there. That does mean that truthfulness to life can count for even more in a performance than good singing.

The Mikado, Charles Court Opera, King's Head Theatre

David Nice Tuesday, 08 November 2011

Is this the year that G&S became definitively chic again? The slow-burn effect of ENO's "Miller Mikado" and Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy now results in numerous fringe benefits. Sasha Regan's all-male Union Theatre regime has delivered its best yet - Iolanthe at Wilton's Music Hall, the most touching and funny show I've seen over the last 11 months - and now Charles Court Opera gives us more witty operetta-in-close-up with a cast of nine backed up by two pianos.

Comment

Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Philharmonia Orchestra, Salonen, Royal Festival Hall

Edward Seckerson Friday, 04 November 2011

Sometimes the most disturbing images exist only in our imaginations - and so the questions posed in the preface to Bartók’s operatic masterpiece Duke Bluebeard’s Castle become especially pertinent: “Where did this happen - outside or within? Where is the stage - outside or within?” The answers, surely, lie “within”, making the prospect of a “semi-staged” climax to Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Philharmonia Bartók series, Infernal Dance, a potentially troubling one.

Comment

La Sonnambula, Royal Opera

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Thursday, 03 November 2011

Imagine what John Cleese might have done with the tale of a slutty sleepwalker who finds herself staying at a packed provincial guest house? Bellini doesn't even touch on farce, let alone psychological investigation. He instead follows the archetypal bel canto formula: dramatic thinness and vocal display.

Comment

Castor and Pollux, English National Opera

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Tuesday, 25 October 2011

The English National Opera were taking quite a gamble with last night's Rameau premiere. The daunting basics?

Comment

Don Pasquale, Glyndebourne on Tour

David Nice Monday, 24 October 2011

Who would have thought that in a comic opera by Donizetti, least orchestra-indulgent of Italian composers, the conductor could be paramount?

The Queen of Spades, Opera North

graham Rickson Sunday, 23 October 2011

This new production, Opera North’s first, sounds fantastic – Tchaikovsky’s lurid colours are brilliantly painted, and the compact dimensions of the Grand Theatre mean that the big orchestral tuttis have a devastating impact. Richard Farnes’s conducting is faultless – this music really swoons, screams and seduces. And despite the occasionally overpowering volume, Farnes never lets his orchestral playing drown out the singers.

Der Fliegende Holländer, Royal Opera

alexandra Coghlan Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Whether or not we believe Wagner’s retrospective rebranding of the opera as a prototype music-drama, “a complete, unbroken web”, Der Fliegende Holländer reliably makes for a vivid evening’s entertainment. Which makes it all the more strange that this is only the work’s third outing at the Royal Opera in almost 20 years.

Xerxes, Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

alexandra Coghlan Saturday, 08 October 2011

“Morning at the airfield: King Xerxes admires the new Spitfire, which he hopes will transform his continental campaign.” If the title – emphatically Xerxes rather than Serse – hadn’t already given the game away, the synopsis for English Touring Opera’s newest Handel production makes it quite clear that we’re not in Kansas (or Italy, or Persia for that matter) any more.

Katya Kabanova, Welsh National Opera

stephen Walsh Saturday, 08 October 2011

Katie Mitchell’s production of what many regard as Janáček’s greatest opera began life 10 years ago on the stage of Cardiff’s New Theatre; and there are times in this revival when you feel its director Robin Tebbutt’s yearning to be back in that constricted environment, so much better suited to the stifling world which destroys the work’s repressed, self-loathing heroine.