Opera Reviews
Il ritorno d'Ulisse, Longborough Festival Opera review - gods and grunge on the long journey homeMonday, 19 July 2021
They showed Clash of the Titans the other night – not the wretched remake, but the original 1981 sword-and-sandals cheesefest, complete with Ray Harryhausen’s Kraken, Ursula Andress as Aphrodite and that rip-roaring Laurence Rosenthal score. Read more... |
L'amico Fritz, Opera Holland Park review - slow-burning love, Italian styleSaturday, 17 July 2021
“If this is love, then why have I fought it?” The stock romantic-comedy prevarications had a Greenwich Village setting in Bernstein’s Wonderful Town at Opera Holland Park less than two weeks ago. Last night, the place was nominally Alsace but the style totally Italianate. Read more... |
The Barber of Seville, Clonter Opera Theatre review - youthful enthusiasm triumphsFriday, 16 July 2021
Harnessing the enthusiasm of youth has always been what Clonter Opera, on a farm in Cheshire, is about with its summer productions. The house is relatively small (there’s always a reduced orchestration as accompaniment), and the idea is that promising young voices can get a chance to try their luck with an audience and learn in the process. Read more... |
The Cunning Little Vixen, Opera Holland Park review - imagine the forest, enjoy the music-makingWednesday, 14 July 2021
Gorgeous woodland romp, a tale of a vivacious, independent-minded young lady-into-fox objectified by three ageing, disillusioned men or a parable of natural regeneration? The different levels of Janáček’s one-off fantasy, from strip-cartoon origins to wise philosophy, are hard to hold in balance. Read more... |
Dido’s Ghost, Buxton International Festival review - the Queen of Carthage returnsTuesday, 13 July 2021
“Remember me!”, sang Dido to a departed Aeneas in the heart-rending aria-chaconne announcing her demise that dominates the ending of Purcell’s baroque opera. But what if he did … if in fact he never could forget her? Read more... |
The Dancing Master, Buxton International Festival review - doing it on the radioMonday, 12 July 2021
How would you solve the problems inherent in a production of Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master, bearing in mind the need for social distancing for performers, comparatively miniscule budgets for scenery and props, and the uncertainty surrounding just about everything in a summer opera festival these days? Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Grange Festival review - heroic comedy in hard timesWednesday, 30 June 2021
When the history of 2021’s slow emergence from lockdown comes to be written, musical administrations will stand out among the heroes. That’s especially true of the country-house opera organisations which have mushroomed in recent years. Read more... |
Amadigi, Garsington Opera review – geometries of enchantmentSunday, 27 June 2021
In Handel’s operas (as, indeed, elsewhere in art and life) the worst witch may turn out to have the best character. Without the sorceress Melissa, splendidly full of evil ruses yet endowed with a generous measure of tragic pathos, Amadigi di Gaula might freeze into a static amorous stand-off between pasteboard nobles contending with a harsh – then, suddenly, kindly – fate. Read more... |
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2021 Final, BBC Four review – an embarrassment of vocal richesMonday, 21 June 2021
A massive musical hope for the future is what we all need right now, after 14 stop/semi-start months and a threatened decimation of the concert and opera scene, the danger of which isn't over yet. Read more... |
Ivan the Terrible, Grange Park Opera review - from tsar to Stalin in five lopsided scenesMonday, 21 June 2021
All 15 of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas deserve to be seen and heard live at least once, though not all of them need staging. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Though Death in Paradise is an Anglo-French production filmed in Guadeloupe, in the French West Indies, the Frenchness seems to have...
There are some years where my pick for album of the year is obvious; something stands out so...
One of last year’s major joys was the box set version of Hawkwind's Space Ritual, an 11-disc extravaganza which made the great live album...
It is not just Twelfth Night, it’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will in The Folio,...
There's a tension in Alfred Hitchcock’s early films between misogyny and condemnation of...
From placing first in the Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Jazz Competition in 2019 to being a triple Grammy winner, Samara Joy’s rise has been...
No new production of a beloved old ballet can please everyone, and there is none more beloved, or more frequently produced, than ...
This feels like the theatrical equivalent of being in a centrifuge – a wild, spinning ride...