Opera Reviews
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Welsh National Opera, CardiffSunday, 20 June 2010
Only those who think the burnt-out question of Wagner and the Nazis can still be brought to bear on his operas could be disappointed by Richard Jones's life-enhancing new production. Read more...
|
OperaShots, Royal OperaSaturday, 19 June 2010
Anyone hoping to take refuge from last night’s football fever in the solemn halls of the Royal Opera House would have scored something of an own goal. Heading the bill for OperaShots – a trio of new operas staged in the intimate Linbury Theatre – was Jocelyn Pook’s Ingerland, an operatic meditation on the beautiful game. Framed by shorter works from Orlando Gough and Nitin Sawhney, the evening was a chance for three established composers to have a “shot” at opera for the... Read more... |
Idomeneo, English National OperaSaturday, 19 June 2010
It's official, like it or not: director Katie Mitchell is the high priestess appointed to make plain the ways of ancient family sacrifice to modern man. She had the high ground of collaborating with composer James MacMillan on his stunning new opera The Sacrifice, based on a Mabinogion revenge saga; but the jury's still out... Read more... |
Macbeth, GlyndebourneFriday, 18 June 2010
Shakespeare's Macbeth is full of fleetingly funny moments. Halfway through the regicidal Second Act, we stumble upon a castle porter gibbering on about the bodily consequences of drink - "nose-painting, sleep and urine". Verdi's opera mostly shuns these vignettes for the bigger, more concentratedly darker picture. The music works itself up into an ornamented mania and for the most part broods on low orchestral colourings. There is nothing funny about a single second of it. Read more... |
Gareth Goes to Glyndebourne, BBC TwoThursday, 17 June 2010
We love Gareth Malone, don’t we? We are big fans of the Pied Piper of primetime. And so we should be. The youth of today seem impressively eager to down tools, put away childish things like knives and drugs and safe-cracking equipment, and follow this slightly weedy and totally uncool choirmaster out onto the concert platform. Our glorious new coalition should be using him to tackle crime. Read more... |
The Love for Three Oranges, Grange Park OperaThursday, 17 June 2010
“Art and love, these have been my life,” sings Tosca in Puccini’s opera. “Music or words first?” the Countess worries in Strauss’s Capriccio. Now in the third of Grange Park’s operas this summer we have the warring advocates of tragedy, comedy, melodrama and farce in Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges. Could it be guilt at its own idle detachment that... Read more... |
Armida, Garsington OperaSunday, 06 June 2010
It's not hard to imagine the Bloomsburyites frolicking around the exquisite Garsington grounds in mock-ups of scenes from Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata. Lady Ottoline, chateleine of the enchanted garden, would writhe as eastern sorceress Armida, though Lytton and co would hardly make a very butch bunch of opposing crusaders. To be honest, there wasn't much more testosterone or sex on show in Rossini's dramatically flimsy, musically elaborate operatic nod to Tasso last night, and the... Read more... |
Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington OperaSunday, 06 June 2010
The sun rode high, the gardens glowed green, my lemon berry pudding bulged proudly and, on stage, the familiar 24-carat farce that is Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro was working itself out to perfection. It was Garsington - and my baking - at its very finest, a fittingly triumphant opening to the final season at Garsington Manor (they move down the road to Wormsley Estate next year). |
Capriccio, Grange Park OperaSaturday, 05 June 2010
By far the most uncomfortable – perhaps the only uncomfortable - thing about Richard Strauss’s last opera is the date of its first performance. In October 1942 the battle of El Alamein was raging and the British were bombing German cities while the Munich opera audience were entertained by a rambling disquisition on the respective merits of poetry and music as art forms, set in an eighteenth-century French château. What modern director could resist this provocation? Stephen Medcalf...
Read more...
|
Mary Stuart, Opera NorthSaturday, 05 June 2010
Among the many pleasures of Donizetti's Mary Stuart is the fun of watching a chunk of primary-school history filtered through a florid bel canto imagination. There are moments when you want to cry out, “That’s not what happened!” But it’s so fast-moving, so well-paced, that you soon stop complaining and just surrender. Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 10,000 pieces, we're asking for £3.95 per month or £30 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take an annual subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
theartsdesk Radio Show 24 - hot subcontinental sounds with...
This episode of Peter Culshaw's occasional global music radio update features guest interview Viveick Rajagopalan, one...
The Best Films Out Now
There are films to meet every taste in theartsdesk's guide to the best movies currently on release. In our considered opinion, any of the titles...
10 Questions for author Martin Gayford
Over the past four decades Martin Gayford, The Spectator’s art critic, has travelled the world, been published in an amazing range of...
CD: Rachid Taha - Je suis africain
Rachid Taha, sadly felled by a heart attack just over a year ago, has come back from the dead! He could not sound more lively than on this vibrant...
Ólafsson, Hallé, Mäkelä, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review...
The Hallé Orchestra has a good track record when it comes to bringing in young talents with exciting prospects,...
The Permanent Way, The Vaults review – devastating resurrect...
The Permanent Way first roared its way into the national consciousness in 2003 when, after a triumphant opening in York, it toured...
The Cameron Years, BBC One review - quite interesting but a...
David Cameron has been a recluse since the fateful days of June 2016 when the...
Count Arthur Strong, Leeds City Varieties review - stargazin...
Count Arthur Strong, the character created by Steve Delaney, started life in the late 1990s and became a cult figure at the...