Opera
Ariodante, Royal Opera online review – stylish, but confinedMonday, 23 November 2020
“After black and gloomy night, the sun shines all the brighter,” sings hero Ariodante after a life-threatening bout of jealousy nearly scuppers a royal wedding. There’s a snag in Handel’s dramaturgy: all that sunshine in preparation for the nuptials... Read more... |
‘Our whole industry is supported by vulnerable freelance creators': Chen Reiss on the artist in a time of CoronavirusMonday, 23 November 2020
I am not the first to say this, and I won’t be the last, but what a strange year 2020 has become! I am learning afresh what it is to be both a singer and a parent and, although we have all been kept closed in our little home “bubbles,” we are... Read more... |
Bluebeard's Castle, LSO, Rattle, LSO St Luke's online review - slow-burning magnificenceWednesday, 04 November 2020
Poulenc’s La voix humaine comes close, but Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle has to be the perfect lockdown opera, this heady tale of two mismatched souls stuck in a confined space (admittedly an enormous one) alarmingly pertinent. Simon Rattle’s London... Read more... |
The Magic Flute, Glyndebourne review - deeply moving light in darknessMonday, 02 November 2020
How does Mozart do it? His music can provoke deep emotions even in the unlikeliest operatic situations, if well done, and present circumstances stirred them up all the more on Sunday afternoon. Those flirtatious ladies flouncing around the prone... Read more... |
Meet the Young Artists Week recital, Linbury Theatre – four big personalitiesThursday, 29 October 2020
Throughout this most difficult of years, the Royal Opera has done the right thing for the singers on its Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. They were fortunate to finish the run of Handel’s Susanna before the Linbury Theatre closed down for over... Read more... |
4/4, Royal Opera review – desire, loss and lunacy in four surprising actsMonday, 19 October 2020
Think you’ve seen enough of monologues and duets over the past few months? Watch this and reel. Four British directors, four conductors with close ties to the Royal Opera and five singers based here, from South African and Spanish-born sopranos on... Read more... |
First Person: tenor Nicky Spence on working with Blackheath locals on screen StravinskyFriday, 09 October 2020
As patron for a community organisation, I see clearly how opera is the biggest collaboration going. Between stage, orchestra pit, school liaisons, chorus leaders, make-up bays and the magicians of the technical team, every cog is of equal... Read more... |
Fidelio, Garsington Opera review - heart of darkness, light-filled liberationSaturday, 19 September 2020
It may be only six and a half months since many of us saw a production of Beethoven’s Fidelio in the opera house, but that was another world, and this post-lockdown admittance to Garsington Opera’s spacious, award-winning pavilion with its... Read more... |
Eavesdropping on Rattle, the LSO and Bartók’s BluebeardWednesday, 16 September 2020
One source of advance information told us to expect a reduced version of Bartók’s one-act Bluebeard’s Castle, among the 20th century’s most original and profound operatic masterpieces. Joining 19 other lucky invitees and some of the LSO brass... Read more... |
La bohème, Scottish Opera – pandemic PucciniMonday, 07 September 2020
Picture the scene. A vast steel gazebo covers a nondescript parking lot next to an industrial unit in Glasgow. With a clear plastic covering, it is the most rudimentary of shelters, sides open to admit the roar of the M8 and the wailing of sirens,... Read more... |
The Royal Opera: Live in Concert review - Italianate fizz with a patch of flatnessSunday, 06 September 2020
What could be better than Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro to celebrate the Royal Opera’s next step on the path out of lockdown? Ideally, the rest of the opera, especially remembering Antonio Pappano’s lively interaction with his singers... Read more... |
Sāvitri, Lauderdale House review - death and life in a Highgate gardenMonday, 24 August 2020
In seach of Orpheus, and following a route from the Hades of (thankfully) masked beings on the underground to Archway, then up to a windy, grassy plateau just below Highgate village, this wandering critic encountered another myth about the power of... Read more... |
