Opera Reviews

Façade/Eight Songs for a Mad King, Grimeborn Opera, Arcola Theatre

Bernard Hughes Friday, 05 September 2014

Walton’s Façade is not performed very often in London, but this weekend there is the opportunity to hear it four days in a row: on Monday at a chamber Prom, but before that in this enterprising staging, paired with Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King.

Prom 59: Elektra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bychkov

Edward Seckerson Monday, 01 September 2014

How much familial dysfunction and lust - whether for sexual gratification or revenge - can one take in a single weekend? Salome and Elektra back-to back may on paper seem like a feast of divine decadence but no sooner had one become accustomed to the sickly sweet air of the former when the putrefaction of the latter (I always think that Strauss’ orchestra is in the final stages of decay with Elektra) filled one’s nostrils - and ears.

Prom 58: Salome, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Runnicles

David Nice Sunday, 31 August 2014

So here’s where I join the ranks of Old Opera Bores by declaring this Salome, Nina Stemme, the best I’ve seen since Hildegard Behrens in 1978, and this Salome as in Richard Strauss’s Wilde opera from Donald Runnicles and his Deutsche Oper Berlin ensemble categorically the most near-perfect. It’s also the first time I’ve had a group of very loud, rude people behind me shouting “sit down” when I stood at the end (and John the Baptist’s God knows I don’t do that often).

Comment

Les Troyens, Mariinsky Opera, Gergiev, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Christopher Lambton Friday, 29 August 2014

The Edinburgh Festival reserved its biggest operatic event for last. From St Petersburg, the Mariinsky Opera brought a production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens that could truly be described as epic: a stellar cast, a vast trompe d’oeil set, and an overall duration comfortably over five hours. A large audience greeted it enthusiastically, but not ecstatically. Maybe exhaustion had set in: there were yawns and smiles in equal measure on the way out.

Comment

Guglielmo Tell, Teatro Regio Torino, Noseda, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Hanna Weibye Wednesday, 27 August 2014

First, confessions. I’m the dance critic here at theartsdesk. Yes, this is a review of a concert performance of an opera, and no, I haven’t picked up a detailed knowledge of Rossini’s oeuvre as a byproduct of my education in pirouettes and Pina Bausch. I attended last night’s concert as a common or garden punter, and a chance one at that, taking a ticket to save wasting it after its original owner had to give it up because of a work commitment.

Comment

Rinaldo, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

alexandra Coghlan Sunday, 10 August 2014

God it’s good to laugh in an opera house. Not a hear-how-clever-I-am-to-get-the-laborious-operatic-joke laugh, or an I-realise-this-is-supposed-to-be-funny-so-I’m-playing-along one, but a real, spontaneous laugh that tickles into sound before you’ve even had time to register its approach. Back for its second appearance, Robert Carsen’s Glyndebourne Rinaldo is ingenious and witty, joyous and completely over-the-top, and the best possible ending to this year’s summer opera season.

Comment

Prom 28: D'Orazio, Clayton, BBCSO, Oramo

Edward Seckerson Friday, 08 August 2014

All kinds of narratives were at play in this Prom from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its Principal Conductor Sakari Oramo - and perhaps the truly adventurous programmer might have double-deployed Rory Kinnear, dispassionately chronicling Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex, and taken us beyond the Overture and into the melodramas of Beethoven’s Incidental Music to Egmont.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Opera Holland Park

David Nice Sunday, 03 August 2014

“What does opera have to say to the under-30s?” asked Alexandra Coghlan on theartsdesk yesterday. The question “what does opera have to say to the under-10s?” has had to wait until today.

Prom 6: Der Rosenkavalier, LPO, Ticciati

Kimon Daltas Wednesday, 23 July 2014

If last year’s Ring cycle triumphantly proved that world-class opera can be done at the Albert Hall, this Rosenkavalier suggests that the less epic end of the repertoire isn’t such a sure thing. That is not to say that this performance was dud, far from it; rather that its few problems were venue related.

La traviata, Glyndebourne

David Nice Friday, 18 July 2014

Some of us have witnessed Traviatas where single stars were born: Angela Gheorghiu for Solti at the Royal Opera nearly 20 years ago springs quickest to mind. Some would claim a dream couple in Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon on peak form at Salzburg.