Mozart
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - pure musical essenceWednesday, 15 January 2020
"What is it about Mozart?" asked Sviatoslav Richter in 1982. "Is there a pianist alive who really manages to play him well?...Haydn is infinitely less difficult to play (he's almost easy, in fact). So what is Mozart's secret?" Just over a decade... Read more... |
Clarke, Ränzlöv, The Mozartists, Page, Wigmore Hall - young Mozart among the giantsFriday, 10 January 2020
Assuming the world holds together that long, there will be something we can rely on annually all the way to 2041, the 250th anniversary of Mozart's death: among the celebrations each year, a Wigmore Hall concert like this one, placing Amadeus among... Read more... |
ECO, Zacharias, Fairfield Halls Croydon review - green-fingered HaydnWednesday, 13 November 2019
Switch off for a phrase or two and it’s easy to miss the point in a Haydn symphony that makes each one of them odd and unique. In No. 74, played last night with understated class by the English Chamber Orchestra, that point occurs in the first... Read more... |
The Seraglio, English Touring Opera review – focused and lightSaturday, 05 October 2019
No great innovations in this Seraglio – as ETO are styling Mozart’s early Singspiel (its full title in translation is The Abduction from the Seraglio – but a traditional staging that makes the most of all the work’s characters and quirks. Mozart’s... Read more... |
Bavouzet, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manchester, review - concertos as operaThursday, 26 September 2019
Manchester Camerata’s series of in-concert recordings featuring Mozart piano concertos with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is well under way now, and this programme, like others before it, included a couple of his opera overtures too. Why so? "Because all... Read more... |
Don Giovanni, Royal Opera review - laid-back LotharioTuesday, 17 September 2019
Kasper Holten left a mixed bag of productions behind at Royal Opera when he left in 2017, but the best of them - though not all my colleagues on The Arts Desk have agreed - is this Don Giovanni, now back for its latest revival.Visually, the... Read more... |
Don Jo, Grimeborn review - conceptual style over musical substanceSaturday, 07 September 2019
Described as a "performer-led re-devising’"of Mozart’s 1787 opera Don Giovanni - a tale of an arrogant and ruthless lothario who seduced countess women - Don Jo certainly played around with many of the norms we encounter in both sexual relationships... Read more... |
Prom 51: Die Zauberflöte, Glyndebourne review - smooth classic without depthWednesday, 28 August 2019
Can we go back to an older Glyndebourne-at-the-Proms vintage, where the chosen production was merely sketched out with variations suited to the venue, and performed in whatever evening dress might be appropriate? Certainly one wishes that director-... Read more... |
Prom 26: BBCNOW, Stutzmann review – a banquet of fervent favouritesThursday, 08 August 2019
Not every Prom has to push musical boundaries or bust concert conventions. On the face of it, last night’s programme from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (and National Chorus of Wales) stuck to a thoroughly traditional recipe. Two familiar 19th-... Read more... |
Die Zauberflöte, Glyndebourne Festival review – high jinks in the Grand Mozart HotelFriday, 19 July 2019
Die Zauberflöte rarely attracts the plain cooks of the operatic world. Mozart’s farewell opera chucks so many highly-spiced ingredients into its outlandish pot – pantomime and parable, burlesque and ritual – that many productions opt for one show-... Read more... |
Don Giovanni, Longborough Festival Opera review - Mozart in the urinalMonday, 15 July 2019
One of the features of the converted barn that forms the theatre at Longborough is a trio of statues that tops the front pediment of the building: Wagner, flanked by Verdi on the right and Mozart on the left. No one could question Wagner:... Read more... |
Alder, The Mozartists, Page, Wigmore Hall review - a Mozart feast for eyes and earsTuesday, 09 July 2019
Seven European cities, seven works: from an eight-year-old's First Symphony composed in what is now Ebury Street to the towering concert aria for Josepha Dushchek of Prague's Villa Bertramka, Ian Page's latest Mozart cornucopia took us on a rich and... Read more... |
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