mezzos
Anja Mittermüller, Richard Fu, Wigmore Hall review - a glorious hall debutSunday, 19 October 2025
Helping to build the careers of superb young singers is what Wigmore Hall has done for decades: I still remember Olaf Bär’s debut in the hall in 1983, having won the Walther Gruner Lieder competition, and also Matthias Goerne’s in 1997.But... Read more... |
Carmen, English National Opera review - not quite dangerousThursday, 09 October 2025
“Safe” is a word used far too often in ENO’s bizarre new version of a programme, full of uncredited articles, at least two of which look as if they’re AI generated. Everything intimacy director Haruko Karoda, Niamh O’Sullivan (Carmen) and John... Read more... |
Stiletto, Charing Cross Theatre review - new musical excessWednesday, 02 April 2025
That friend you have who hates musicals – probably male, probably straight, probably not seen one since The Sound of Music on BBC 1 after the Queen’s Speech in 1978 – well, don’t send them to Charing Cross Theatre for this show. But that other... Read more... |
Helen Charlston, Sholto Kynoch, Temple Church review - fine singing, powerful stage presenceThursday, 27 February 2025
Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston just gets better and better, both as singer and as actor. Last night’s recital at Temple Church had an unusual and wide-ranging programme – consisting of a first half hopping through the centuries, followed by a... Read more... |
Murrihy, Martineau, Wigmore Hall review - poise, transformation and rainbow coloursThursday, 30 May 2024
Peerless among the constellation of Irish singers making waves around the world, mezzo Paula Murrihy first dazzled London as Ascanio in Terry Gilliam’s English National Opera production of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini. Since then she’s become a major... Read more... |
Carmen, Glyndebourne review - total musical fusionFriday, 17 May 2024
It’s what you dream of in opera but don’t often get: singers feeling free and liberated to give their best after weeks of preparation with a master conductor. Glyndebourne Music Director Robin Ticciati leads the way with a peerless London... Read more... |
Morison, Big Noise Wester Hailes, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - shimmering delicacy and surging swellSaturday, 09 March 2024
While it is an incontrovertibly good thing that the classical music world has set about rediscovering the work of neglected female composers, not all rediscoveries are equally worthy of being found. Particularly on a day like International Women’s... Read more... |
Connolly, Middleton, Leeds Lieder online review - epic voyage on a luxury vesselTuesday, 27 April 2021
Some lockdown-era recital programmes have doled out miserly short measures, as performers gallop through a brief, rushed hour (or less) of music as if afraid to tax the online patience of their disembodied audience. If this final concert in Leeds... Read more... |
Live from Covent Garden 2, Royal Opera and Ballet online review - heaven and earth in a nutshellWednesday, 24 June 2020
Solitude, mortality and transcendence have never been more profoundly expressed in music than by Mahler, who composed Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) in the valley of the shadow of death (too superstitious to give it the name of Ninth... Read more... |
Cargill, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - high anxiety and visionary gleamsFriday, 13 December 2019
What a jolting coincidence that one of the 20th century's angriest symphonic beasts should have a rare unleashing on a night of high national anxiety. Whether Vaughan Williams spewed forth his Fourth Symphony in response to darkening European clouds... Read more... |
Cargill, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - luscious opening to a rich seasonTuesday, 08 October 2019
The conductor Thomas Søndergård turned 50 on Friday. He marked the occasion, which coincided with the opening concert of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s winter season, with a short homily on the contradictions of age – “the young seek... Read more... |
Elīna Garanča, Malcolm Martineau, Wigmore Hall review - towards transcendenceMonday, 18 February 2019
It seems an almost indecent luxury to have heard two top mezzos in just over a week with so much to express, backed up by the perfect technique and instrument with which to do so. Georgian Anita Rachvelishvili with Pappano and the Royal Opera... Read more... |
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