Opera Reviews
Die Feen, Chelsea Opera Group, Queen Elizabeth HallMonday, 18 March 2013
Like Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges and Puccini’s Turandot, Wagner’s first opera – The Fairies in English – has its roots in a “theatrical fable” by the 18th century Venetian playwright Carlo Gozzi. There the resemblances end. Only Prokofiev follows Gozzi’s playful mix of commedia dell’arte and fairy-tale characters. Read more...
|
The Gospel According to the Other Mary, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dudamel, Barbican HallSunday, 17 March 2013
“I do not believe in miracles,” scoffs Herodias in Oscar Wilde’s - and Richard Strauss’s - Salome. “I have seen too many.” I know how she feels. Read more... |
Imago, Glyndebourne OperaMonday, 11 March 2013
Imago, Glyndebourne’s latest Community Opera exercise, putting the cap on 25 years of pioneering educational outreach, is one of those operas where you need to read the programme synopsis first. Read more... |
Simon Boccanegra, English Touring OperaSaturday, 09 March 2013
Simon Boccanegra has, as English Touring Opera’s director James Conway points out, never quite made the running outside Italy amid Verdi’s output. It went through three to five different versions in a short space of time. Despite the Romeo and Juliet era setting (14th-century Genoa battling it out with Venice) there are naivetes in Piave and Boito’s plot which, despite the frenetic story’s many merits, generate more than the usual operatic implausibilities. Read more... |
Written on Skin, Royal OperaSaturday, 09 March 2013
It’s hard to put one’s finger on why George Benjamin’s new opera doesn’t work. It comes to Covent Garden with a wind in its sails. Its outings in Europe have all received high praise. It boasts a classy cast, Martin Crimp as librettist and Benjamin at the helm of the orchestra. The story is a captivatingly horrific medieval morality tale that often goes by the title of "the Eaten Heart story". And there’s little wrong with Katie Mitchell’s production. Read more... |
Phaëton, Les Talens Lyriques, Rousset, Barbican HallSaturday, 09 March 2013
Excess of light and heat sends sun-god Apollo’s son Phaeton tumbling from his father’s chariot. The light was iridescent and the temperature well conditioned as peerless Christophe Rousset led his period-instrument Les Talens Lyriques and a variable group of singers through a concert performance of Lully’s 1684 tragédie-lyrique, a specially pertinent, heliotropic operatic homage to le roi soleil Louis XIV. Read more... |
Worden, BBC Concert Orchestra, de Ridder, Queen Elizabeth HallMonday, 04 March 2013
Who’d have guessed a full house for the third of The Rest is Noise festival’s Berlin nights? This time there were no obvious superstars, unless you follow singer-songwriter Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and you know the impeccable track-record so far of young conductor André de Ridder. Read more... |
The Threepenny Opera, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSunday, 03 March 2013
Given a fair few strange and languishing Brecht-Weill pieces that The Rest is Noise Festival’s Berlin strand might have explored, Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO had a tough time of it by piecing together a performing edition of the most familiar one. Stagings of Die Dreigroschenoper with singing actors and a deft director can knit this celebrated hybrid together. Read more... |
The Barber of Seville, English National OperaTuesday, 26 February 2013
There is only one rule by which one should ever judge a Barber of Seville. If your eyes (and possibly also your trouser legs) aren’t moist by the time the interval arrives, you might as well leave. The last time this Jonathan Miller production was revived by the English National Opera, it passed with flying colours. This time round, I was dry as a bone. Three hours and I notched up two smiles and a snigger. Read more... |
The Cunning Little Vixen, Welsh National OperaMonday, 25 February 2013
Janáček’s opera subjects – the 300-year-old opera singer, the composer with a mad mother-in-law, the Siberian prison camp – are by any standards a fairly rum collection. But The Cunning Little Vixen is arguably the most deviant of the whole bunch. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Dept. Q, Netflix review - Danish crime thriller finds a new...
Netflix’s new detective-noir is a somewhat cosmopolitan beast. It’s written and directed by an American, Scott Frank, derived from a novel, ...
The Queen of Spades, Garsington Opera review - sonorous glid...
Recent events have prompted the assertion – understandable in Ukraine – that the idea of the Russian soul is a nationalist myth. This production...
Blu-ray: Eclipse
What constitutes a “lost classic”? I guess we can’t say it’s an oxymoron, since we readily accept the concept of “instant classic”? Either way,...
The Ballad of Wallis Island review - the healing power of th...
I think The Ballad of Wallis Island is the best...
Music Reissues Weekly: Pete Shelley - Homosapien, XL-1
Pete Shelley’s departure from Buzzcocks felt abrupt. When he left the...
The Salt Path review - the transformative power of nature
“I can’t move my arms or legs, but apart from that I’m good to go.” Moth (Jason Isaacs) has to be pulled out of the tent in his sleeping bag by...
Elephant, Menier Chocolate Factory review - subtle, humorous...
This charmingly eloquent semi-autobiographical show – which first played at the Bush Theatre in 2022 – tells the story of a girl whose...
Album: Nick Mulvey - Dark Harvest Pt.1
Nick Mulvey’s first two albums, First Mind in 2014 and Wake Up Now in 2017, are among the loveliest singer-songwriter fare...