Opera Reviews
Amadis de Gaule, UCL OperaThursday, 26 March 2015
Johann Christian Bach’s Amadis de Gaule, which is receiving its first London run this week in a vivid and charming production at University College London Opera this week, suffered like many a talented work from the blinkered whims of musical fashion. Read more... |
Giove in Argo, Britten Theatre, Royal College of MusicWednesday, 25 March 2015
If you’re looking for rare festival Handel, better a pasticcio – take that as shorthand for a cut-and-paste job mostly from previous hits – than one of those original operas in which the composer only goes through the motions (and I’ve heard a few). Read more... |
Madama Butterfly, Royal OperaSaturday, 21 March 2015
When is a famous aria more than just a showpiece? When it’s a narrative of a future event conjured by a hope beyond reason, which is what Madama Butterfly’s “Un bel dì” (“One fine day”) ought to be but so rarely is: too often prima donna overkill and stereotyped mannerisms get in the way. Not with Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais. Read more... |
The Wild Man of the West Indies, ETO, Hackney EmpireFriday, 13 March 2015
“Do you think they’ve got enough plot to get us through to the end?” I overheard a lady anxiously asking her husband during the interval. It was a fair question. Donizetti’s The Wild Man of the West Indies was written within a year of L’elisir d’amore, and the two operas share many things, but not that spark of genius that can transform a pantomime into a drama. Rarely has so little happened in an opera, and with even less effect. Read more... |
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Royal OperaWednesday, 11 March 2015
"No heckling. No smoking. No making love," read the nifty video projections announcing the rise of the new Mahagonny at the Royal Opera House. Why so coy? Could they not give us a bang for our buck, or even a slow comfortable screw? Read more... |
Alice in Wonderland, BBCSO, Brönnimann, BarbicanMonday, 09 March 2015
The Southbank Centre’s Women of the World Festival may have been the largest cultural event marking International Women’s Day 2015, but it wasn’t the most ambitious. Over at the Barbican two women were responsible for a multimedia opera staging whose spectacle, level of detail and sheer force of personnel involved was staggering. Read more... |
Ruddigore, Charles Court Opera, King's Head TheatreTuesday, 03 March 2015
How can a feisty village dame duetting “lackaday”s with the mounted head of a long-lost, nay, long-dead love be so deuced affecting? Ascribe it partly to the carefully-applied sentiment of Gilbert and Sullivan, slipping in a very singular 11-o’clock number after so much Gothick spoofery, partly to two consummate and subtle singing actors, Amy J Payne and John Savournin, in a production of spare ingenuity by the latter, true Renaissance/Victorian man equally at home in opera and operetta. Read more... |
Le Roi de Lahore, Chelsea Opera Group, QEHMonday, 02 March 2015
Now that opera houses mostly lack either the will or the funds to stage the more fantastical/exotic pageants among 19th century operas – the Royal Opera production of Meyerbeer’s mostly third-rate Robert le Diable was an unhappy exception – it’s left to valiant concert-performance companies like Chelsea Opera Group to try and trail clouds of kitschy glory. Read more... |
Die Zauberflöte, Royal OperaSunday, 01 March 2015
Mozart’s The Magic Flute is one of those operas, like Verdi’s Il trovatore and all the mature Wagner masterpieces, which need a line-up of equally fine singers but rarely get it in the compromised world of the opera house. Read more... |
The Indian Queen, English National OperaFriday, 27 February 2015
When Purcell died at just 36, he left The Indian Queen unfinished, which only adds to the usual problems of staging his "semi-operas" – plays with musical interludes which don’t really accord with modern operatic tastes, despite the ravishing beauty of the music itself. Read more... |
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