Opera Reviews
The Winter's Tale, English National OperaTuesday, 28 February 2017
After a Royal Opera performance of Birtwistle's The Minotaur, a friend spotted Hans Werner Henze in the foyer and had the temerity to ask that annoying question "What did you think?" "Very competent and extremely well performed," came the reply. Read more...
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Hansel and Gretel, Opera NorthMonday, 27 February 2017
Opera North’s updated version of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel takes place in what looks like a down-at-heel Leeds housing estate, the titular siblings shown filming the story using simple domestic props and back projections. Quite how the impoverished pair have acquired a high-end video camera isn’t made clear; presumably the assorted boxes of Christmas decorations scattered around Giles Cadel’s spare set fell off the back of the same lorry. Read more... |
Juan Diego Flórez, Vincenzo Scalera, Symphony Hall, BirminghamWednesday, 22 February 2017
“Who says Mozart is not like Rossini?” remarked Juan Diego Flórez, about a quarter of an hour into his debut recital at Symphony Hall. Read more... |
Le Vin herbé, Welsh National OperaFriday, 17 February 2017
Wagner’s Tristan left a huge mark on fin de siècle art, on the symbolist poets, even on their pseudonyms; Debussy himself toyed with a four-act opera on the subject. Read more... |
Kaufmann, Mattila, LSO, Pappano, BarbicanThursday, 09 February 2017
Jonas Kaufmann’s legion of admirers could rest content. A well-received Lieder evening last week demonstrated that the world’s hottest tenor property had returned, both to London for a three-concert residency at the Barbican, and indeed to singing after burst blood vessels had forced several months of rest and cancelled concerts. Read more... |
Adriana Lecouvreur, Royal OperaWednesday, 08 February 2017
Adriana Lecouvreur deserves to be better known. The opera has a toe-hold in the repertoire, with occasional appearances, usually as a showcase for the soprano in the title role. Read more... |
Rigoletto, English National OperaFriday, 03 February 2017
This was supposed to be a triumphant return – one final encore for the production so good that audiences just couldn’t let it go. Instead, this 13th revival of Jonathan Miller’s Mafia Rigoletto seems like an apology. The designs are handsome as ever, the concept as neat, but the details of both direction and music are so scrappy and scattered that the show feels more like a basement clear-out than a loving restoration. Read more... |
The Snow Maiden, Opera NorthMonday, 30 January 2017
Late January, and the soul longs for winter's end. Which is why Rimsky-Korsakov's bittersweet fairy story about the fragile daughter of Spring and Frost whose heart will melt when she discovers true love, allowing the sun to bring back warmth to earth, is so apt. Unfortunately the time of year is also one for striking singers down, so we missed two of the principals on Saturday night. Read more... |
Les Enfants Terribles, BarbicanSaturday, 28 January 2017
To judge from the hype in advance of this production, you’d think it must be a premiere. In fact Philip Glass’s dance-opera hybrid, written in 1996 and based on Jean Cocteau’s 1950 screenplay, received its first London performance at the Arcola Theatre six years ago. Read more... |
Christine Rice, Julius Drake, Middle Temple HallTuesday, 24 January 2017
To catch the searing desolation of a lover scorned, you need to be the complete artist, with temperament and technique in perfect equilibrium. Mezzo Christine Rice has taken us from Berlioz's Marguerite and Mozart's Donna Elvira at English National Opera via Birtwistle's Ariadne to Haydn's, and - most taxing of all - the end of an affair by telephone in Poulenc's La Voix Humaine. Read more... |
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