Opera Reviews
Tristan und Isolde, Longborough FestivalFriday, 09 June 2017
The Longborough Festival was started, essentially, to perform Wagner, and Wagner is still what it does best. This revival of Carmen Jakobi’s production of Tristan und Isolde is the strongest argument imaginable for small-theatre Wagner. Read more... |
Radamisto, Guildhall School, Milton CourtTuesday, 06 June 2017
''…after various Accidents, it comes to pass that he recovers both Her and his Kingdom”. Read more... |
La Rondine, Opera Holland ParkFriday, 02 June 2017
When are the big international opera houses going to wake up to the great British talent that is Elizabeth Llewellyn? With her opulent soprano – shaded middle register, full bloom at the top, cutting chest voice – she was born to sing Verdi and Puccini, and her stage presence is undeniable from the moment she steps out. Read more... |
L'Orfeo, EBS, Gardiner, Colston Hall, BristolMonday, 29 May 2017
This last of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s semi-staged Monteverdi series took us back practically to the very start of the whole genre. L’Orfeo was presented in Mantua in 1607 as a court opera, and will have been seen and heard by a fraction of the number of people who crowded into Bristol’s Colston Hall on... Read more... |
The Mikado review - Sasha Regan's all-male operetta formula hits a reefThursday, 25 May 2017
Men playing boys playing girls, women and men, all female parts convincingly falsettoed and high musical standards as backbone: Sasha Regan's single-sex Gilbert and Sullivan has worked a special magic on Iolanthe and The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and now The Mikado, not so much. Energetic song and dance are still in evidence. Read more... |
Sebestyén, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer, RFHWednesday, 24 May 2017
This was a very fine concert indeed, plus a lot more. The first half was a very carefully planned series of unveilings around the theme of Béla Bartók and Hungarian folk music, the second an overwhelming performance of his Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. Read more... |
Hipermestra / La Traviata, GlyndebourneMonday, 22 May 2017
A Saudi princess in her white wedding dress digs her own grave as men pile up stones to hurl at her head — next, an Isis fighter is stabbing a knife at her neck to decapitate her. Ah, the fate of the heroine of the average baroque opera about the appalling ways of men and gods. Read more... |
Y Tŵr, MTW, Sherman Theatre, CardiffSaturday, 20 May 2017
Until yesterday my only experience of the Welsh language in the opera house was a few isolated passages in Iain Bell’s In Parenthesis last year and the surtitles WNO routinely put up alongside the English in the Millennium Centre. Read more... |
Ariodante, The English Concert, Bicket, BarbicanWednesday, 17 May 2017
To hear The English Concert playing Handel is to arrive in technicolour Oz after a lifetime of black and white baroque in Kansas. Read more... |
Turandot, Opera NorthMonday, 15 May 2017
I’ve seen the future, and it’s semi-staged. The gains here are far more significant than the losses. And where Opera North’s minimalist Leeds Town Hall Ring let Peter Mumford’s video projections fill in the gaps, this new production of Turandot is costumed, lit and directed, lacking only a... Read more... |
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