Opera
Ivan the Terrible, Grange Park Opera review - from tsar to Stalin in five lopsided scenesMonday, 21 June 2021
All 15 of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas deserve to be seen and heard live at least once, though not all of them need staging. Veteran director David Pountney’s bold choice for Grange Park Opera actually gives us two, a prologue reworked as music-drama... Read more... |
Der Rosenkavalier, Garsington Opera review - musical marvels, drama less often fulfilledFriday, 18 June 2021
Whatever else happens on the country opera scene this summer, the golden rose award for sheer chutzpah goes to the ever-ambitious Garsington team in pulling this off in no small style. Planning any production of Richard Strauss and Hugo von... Read more... |
La traviata, Opera Holland Park review – a revival in rude healthMonday, 07 June 2021
Loudly and painfully, the consumptive Violetta wheezes before we hear a single note. Her pitiful gasping for the breath that deserts her precedes the prelude to Opera Holland Park’s La traviata; the same effect ushers in Act Three. At first I... Read more... |
Eugene Onegin, Garsington Opera review - choral and orchestral opulence for TchaikovskyMonday, 07 June 2021
Peasant harvesters enter from the facsimile of Lady Ottoline Morrell’s Garsington garden to the right (stage left) of the state-of-the-art pavilion and, splendidly led by a solo tenor (Dominick Felix), burst into song. The temptation is to burst... Read more... |
Die Walküre, Longborough Festival Opera review - heroic defiance of farcical constraintsFriday, 04 June 2021
Whatever might be said about Longborough Festival’s first live opera since 2019, the first and most important thing is to praise the company without reservation for putting on a show of anything like this quality in the face of obstacles of the sort... Read more... |
Il turco in Italia, Glyndebourne review – who knew 1950s neorealism could be such fun?Monday, 24 May 2021
The new Glyndebourne production of Rossini's Il turco in Italia has a truly winning smile on its face and a spring and a dance in its musical step. It is brimful of fun and good ideas, conveying the sense that a lot of joy has been had in its making... Read more... |
Káťa Kabanová, Glyndebourne review - a misalliance of metatheatre and the mundaneFriday, 21 May 2021
Angels and birds throng the inner life of tragic heroine Katya Kabanova, very much centre-stage in Nikolay Ostrovsky’s The Storm and achingly so in Janáček’s musical portrait. Director Damiano Michieletto takes the feathers, adds cages and... Read more... |
Current, Rising, Royal Opera House review - a joyful celebration of storytelling possibilityFriday, 21 May 2021
This isn’t an opera review, because Current, Rising is not an opera. What it is, however, is the most convincing example yet that Virtual Reality arts might not just be possible, but desirable – an experience that glances beyond gimmick towards... Read more... |
La clemenza di Tito, Royal Opera review - light and dark in near-perfect balanceTuesday, 18 May 2021
It looked as if the Royal Opera might be trying to keep its distance with the first new production since lockdown. After all, Mozart’s last opera – only the Overture and March of the Priests in The Magic Flute remained to be composed in the fatal... Read more... |
Europe Day Concert, St John's Smith Square online review – celebrating in styleMonday, 10 May 2021
We may not be in the EU any more, but geographically and culturally we can celebrate being part of Europe as much as we jolly well like. For Europe Day, the European Parliament Liaison Office, the Camōes Institute, the Embassy of Portugal and the... Read more... |
Christa Ludwig, 1928-2021: a selective tributeFriday, 07 May 2021
I only saw Christa Ludwig twice live in concert, but those appearances epitomise her incredible dramatic and vocal rage as well as her peerless artistry in everything she did. The first event was Schubert’s Winterreise with pianist Charles Spencer... Read more... |
The Seven Deadly Sins / Mahagonny Songspiel, Royal Opera online - modern morality tales mesh uneasilySaturday, 10 April 2021
There are so many good ideas, so much talented hard work from the singers of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme and two dancers, such a cinematic use of the Royal Opera House, that Isabelle Kettle’s interweaving of two Brecht/Weill mini... Read more... |
