18th century
The Flouers o'Edinburgh, Finborough TheatreSunday, 07 September 2014
There are 15 characters in Robert McLellan's quirky 1948 comedy, but the star is the language most of them speak. To mark the referendum later this month, the Finborough is mounting a season of Scottish work, including a trio of classics, under the... Read more... |
Rinaldo, Glyndebourne Festival OperaSunday, 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... Read more... |
Alright on the Night: at Glyndebourne with the OAESaturday, 09 August 2014
If you only ever listened to opera from recordings, you might overlook the fact that it's as much theatre as it is music. In the opera house on the night, it's all well and good for the orchestra to play the score and the singers to sing their parts... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Bregenz: A floating opera festivalSunday, 03 August 2014
It’s raining. Not spitting or drizzling, properly raining, with clouds so thick that you know they’re here to stay. Yet rather than take shelter in restaurants and bars, or simply stay at home on this soggy summer night, 7,000 people in a stylish... Read more... |
Prom 12: Bach St John Passion, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, NorringtonSunday, 27 July 2014
Sir Roger Norrington, 80 this year, produced a masterful St John Passion in the first of his two appearances at this year’s Proms, built around his excellent Swiss chamber orchestra and the Zürcher Sing-Akademie.Predictably, one of the main... Read more... |
Così fan tutte, European Opera Centre, RLPO, Pillot, St George’s Hall Concert Room, LiverpoolTuesday, 15 July 2014
One of the joys of attending an opera in the Concert Room at St George’s Hall, Liverpool, is the feeling that the audience is sitting in the set itself. Now one of the city’s foremost concert venues, this Victorian gem never ceases to amaze, even... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Buxton: Dvořák rarity, Gluck tercentenaryMonday, 14 July 2014
Buxton has gone Bohemian, digging into Dvořák’s treasure trove and celebrating Gluck’s tercentenary. The choice of Dvořák’s The Jacobin fits the Buxton Festival tradition of rooting out neglected works, since this has been unjustly overlooked since... Read more... |
In Lambeth, Southwark PlayhouseSaturday, 12 July 2014
When the lights go up on Jack Shepherd’s In Lambeth, you could be forgiven for assuming you were looking at a biblical scene. A man and a woman sit naked in the branches of a tree, a tableau straight out of Eden, not south London. She has a book in... Read more... |
Nightmare in Aix: Sarah Connolly on a shocking first nightTuesday, 08 July 2014
I felt so shocked by the events that took place during the premiere of Handel’s Ariodante on 3 July in the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence last week, and so disappointed that our painstaking work with director Richard Jones over the last six weeks had... Read more... |
Pinnock's Passions, Handel's Garden, Sam Wanamaker PlayhouseTuesday, 08 July 2014
The latest in a series of "Pinnock’s Passions" concerts at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse saw the doyen of period instrument performance lead a delightful exploration of Handel the musical borrower, entitled "Handel’s Garden". As Trevor Pinnock writes... Read more... |
La finta giardiniera, GlyndebourneSunday, 29 June 2014
There are two avenues down which to approach the well-kept flower beds of Mozart’s early operas. One is to be surprised how rarely the muse of fire which rages through Idomeneo, his first undisputed masterpiece, descends on a work composed just a... Read more... |
Listed: 10 Mozart Operas You've Never Heard (of)Saturday, 28 June 2014
Mozart operas – we’ve all been there, whistled the arias, untangled the love triangles (quadrants/pentagons), dabbled in some cross-dressing, and sung a rousing chorus of general forgiveness. But for every ubiquitous Don Giovanni or Le Nozze di... Read more... |
