Opera Reviews
BBC Philharmonic, Wellber, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - new conductor’s debutMonday, 08 October 2018
Two days after announcing his appointment as their next chief conductor (he takes the reins officially next summer, in time for the Proms), by remarkable good fortune the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic was able to present Omer Meir Wellber as the conductor of their second Bridgewater Hall series concert. Read more... |
Dido and Aeneas, Academy of Ancient Music, Barbican review – prosthetic passionsWednesday, 03 October 2018
“War Horse has a lot to answer for,” grumbled, or joked, my neighbour as the white-draped and white-faced puppet of the Queen of Carthage lay crumpled on the floor at the close of Thomas Guthrie’s semi-staged production of Dido and Aeneas. Well, not just War Horse. Read more... |
Götterdämmerung, Royal Opera review - a fiery finale to this ambiguous cycleTuesday, 02 October 2018
And so it ends. Flames give way to water, and as the Rhinemaidens resume their naked dance we come full circle – quite literally in Keith Warner’s Wagner Ring – back where we began, on the banks of the Rhine. Once again we find ourselves on the brink – but of what? Read more... |
Siegfried, Royal Opera review - a truly fearless heroSunday, 30 September 2018
Siegfried is usually the problem with Siegfried. Even Stuart Skelton, top Tristan and currently singing an acclaimed Siegmund in this last revival of Keith Warner's rattlebag Ring, won't touch the longest, toughest heroic-tenor role in Wagner, the protagonist of his third opera in the tetralogy. Read more... |
Salome, English National Opera review - a not so terrible stillnessSaturday, 29 September 2018
Sibling incest among the symbolic clutter of the Royal Opera Ring on Wednesday, last night necrophilia and a bit more incest – mother and daughter this time, courtesy of the director's imagination – in a stone-cold ENO Salome. Read more... |
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review – putting family before sexThursday, 27 September 2018
Perched alone and fearful in her hut as the curtain rises on Die Walküre, Sieglinde clutches and then throws aside a grimy teddy-bear. Story time is over. The nymphs and gold and bickering gods all belong in the past, to the ‘preliminary evening’ of Das Rheingold, or so Sieglinde might think. The real drama of Wagner's Ring begins here. Read more... |
Das Rheingold, Royal Opera review - high drama and dark comedyTuesday, 25 September 2018
Keith Warner’s production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen was first seen at Covent Garden between 2004 and 2006, and is now back for a third and final series of full runs, chiefly to catch the Brünnhilde of Nina Stemme in three of the operas, continuing into November. Read more... |
Isouard's Cendrillon, Bampton Classical Opera review - stepsisters shine in fairy-tale bagatelleWednesday, 19 September 2018
Cinderella as opera in French: of late, the palm has always gone to Massenet's adorable (as in a-dor-Ah-bler) confection, and it should again soon when Glyndebourne offers a worthy home to the master's magic touch. Read more... |
Parsifal, Saffron Opera Group review - drama and focusTuesday, 18 September 2018
It is a pleasure to report on the continuing success of the Saffron Opera Wagner project. The organisation was formed in 2013, and since then has presented concert performances of the Ring cycle and Meistersinger, and now Parsifal, all with an amateur orchestra and chorus and a cast of mostly lesser-known professionals. Read more... |
War and Peace, Welsh National Opera review - an Operation Barbarossa that comes offMonday, 17 September 2018
What lunatic would ever have the idea of turning War and Peace into an opera? Well, maybe if you, a composer, had found yourself in Moscow in June 1941 when news of the German invasion reached the Soviet capital, you might have decided to mount an Operation Barbarossa of your own, and that’s in all but name what Prokofiev did. The project occupied him on and off for the rest of his life (he died in 1953 on the same day as Stalin), and it never quite reached a definitive form. Read more... |
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