Opera Reviews

Manon Lescaut, Royal Opera

David Nice Wednesday, 18 June 2014

Puccini’s racy first masterpiece, like its successor La bohème, should feel like an opera of two halves – the first full of youthful exuberance, the second darker and ultimately tragic. The contrast here, alas, was between vivacious performers and a sombre, sometimes confused updating by Jonathan Kent which too often dwarfed or zapped their better efforts.

The Pearl Fishers, English National Opera

Kimon Daltas Tuesday, 17 June 2014

Before curtain-up on the opening night of this revival of Penny Woolcock’s production of The Pearl Fishers, ENO's head of casting arrived on stage with a microphone. No doubt delightful company in person, he was an unwelcome sight here. Sophie Bevan had a stomach bug, he explained – the disappointment was palpable. But she'd be bravely singing anyway – grateful applause broke out.

Owen Wingrave/ Pavel Haas Quartet, Aldeburgh Festival

David Nice Monday, 16 June 2014

What a red letter day it is when a work you’ve always thought of as problematic seems at last, if only temporarily, to have no kind of fault or flaw. That was the case for me on Sunday afternoon with Britten’s penultimate opera, Owen Wingrave, launching this year’s Aldeburgh Festival with an ideal cast fused as one with the young Britten-Pears Orchestra thanks to the self-evidently intensive collaboration of director Neil Bartlett and conductor Mark Wigglesworth.

San Giovanni Battista/The Cooper, Guildhall Milton Court Theatre

alexandra Coghlan Saturday, 14 June 2014

The practical considerations and limitations of choosing a work for a student showcase can lead to some wonderfully original programming. It doesn’t get much more original than a pairing of Thomas Arne’s ballad opera The Cooper with Stradella’s oratorio San Giovanni Battista, currently being staged by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Vert-Vert, Garsington Opera

Roderic Dunnett Wednesday, 11 June 2014

How delicious that Garsington Opera has turned to Offenbach. The main impetus for this cheering development, taken up by Artistic Director Douglas Boyd, is conductor David Parry, who both translates (extremely well) and wields the baton.

Comment

Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Ismene Brown Monday, 09 June 2014

Sex farce, class comedy, crime thriller, existential tragedy, supernatural shocker - Don Giovanni is, as Jonathan Kent notes about his production in the Glyndebourne programme, a cabinet of curiosities.

Benvenuto Cellini, English National Opera

alexandra Coghlan Friday, 06 June 2014

Tumblers, confetti, stiltwalkers, flags, crowds, a giant skull, and that’s just the overture. If anyone thought that Terry Gilliam might struggle to match the scope, scale or impact of 2011’s Damnation of Faust with his follow-up then they’re probably feeling rather foolish right about now.

Comment

Peter Grimes, Grange Park

alexandra Coghlan Saturday, 31 May 2014

It takes a brave opera company indeed to stage Peter Grimes this summer. Benjamin Britten’s 2013 centenary celebrations took us to “peak Britten”, with performances of all his major works as well as the unprecedented, outstanding Grimes on the Beach. Then, this January, David Alden’s production of the opera returned to the Coliseum: direct, theatrical and if anything more potent than five years before.

Dialogues des Carmélites, Royal Opera

Edward Seckerson Friday, 30 May 2014

Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites is a special and very particular opera. There is nothing else quite like it. Just as the drama - set to the composer’s own libretto - teeters between fear and faith, so too does Poulenc’s score, an extraordinary apposition of austerity and lushness where belief is harmonically consonant, festooned in seraphic harp glissandi and warmly homogeneous middle-voices.

Der Rosenkavalier, CBSO, Nelsons, Symphony Hall Birmingham

David Nice Sunday, 25 May 2014

A trio of Rosenkavaliers: what more could one want as we near Richard Strauss’s 150^th birthday? Well, more of the less often performed operas, for a start.