Opera North
Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, Opera NorthMonday, 03 October 2016
Just two thirds of Puccini’s Il Trittico still makes for an involving evening’s entertainment. Without Gianni Schicchi there’s an awful lot of misery and heartache, though director Michael Barker-Caven does manage to inject some black comedy into... Read more... |
Götterdämmerung, Opera North, Southbank CentreMonday, 04 July 2016
And so it ends: Hagen drowns, Valhalla burns, and the ring returns to the Rhine, while somewhere beneath – Wagner’s dawn trumpets sounding faintly in the distance – the dwarf Alberich continues his lonely scheming. It would be hard to find a more... Read more... |
Siegfried, Opera North, Southbank CentreSaturday, 02 July 2016
For some of us, Siegfried is a perfect opera. Like L.627 it stubbornly observes the Aristotelian rules of space and time to cut a generous slice of life. There are almost no set-pieces to break the flow of one-on-one conversations, accusations,... Read more... |
Die Walküre, Opera North, Southbank CentreThursday, 30 June 2016
Enter the human - and superhuman demands for at least four of the singers - in the second, towering instalment of Wagner's Ring cycle. It says so much for Opera North's achievement so far that no one fell in any way short of the sometimes insane... Read more... |
Das Rheingold, Opera North, Southbank CentreWednesday, 29 June 2016
They promised Wagner for everybody at the Southbank Centre, and so far they're delivering. Community events cluster around a livescreening of each Ring instalment in the Clore Ballroom. We privileged few in the Festival Hall wondered how newcomers... Read more... |
Best of 2015: OperaWednesday, 30 December 2015
How ironic that English National Opera turned out possibly the two best productions of the year after the Arts Council had done its grant-cutting worst, punishing the company simply, it seemed, for not being the irrationally preferred Royal Opera.... Read more... |
Orchestra of Opera North, Farnes, Leeds Town HallSunday, 06 December 2015
The few ensemble lapses and moments of insecurity during the first half of this concert had nothing to do with Richard Farnes’s conducting, or with the playing of an augmented Orchestra of Opera North. It’s in rude health; Farnes has refined and... Read more... |
Kiss Me, Kate, Opera NorthSunday, 04 October 2015
Opera North have an excellent track record when it comes to staging musicals, and Jo Davies’s Kiss Me, Kate is among the best things they’ve done. Cole Porter’s score and lyrics are flawless, though the book (by husband and wife team Bella and... Read more... |
The Flying Dutchman, Opera NorthSunday, 28 June 2015
We’ve been spoilt over the past few summers in Leeds; Opera North’s semi-staged Ring has been a triumph, and the whole cycle will be performed complete in June 2016. To fill the Town Hall in 2015 we’ve got concert performances of Wagner’s The Flying... Read more... |
Swanhunter, Opera North, Linbury Studio TheatreSunday, 05 April 2015
There was a moment half-way through Jonathan Dove’s children’s opera Swanhunter when I suddenly realised why pantomime developed its convention of the principal boy. Having a grown man prancing and posturing boyishly for the entertainment of a room... Read more... |
La Vida Breve/Gianni Schicchi, Opera NorthThursday, 19 February 2015
The good news first: director Christopher Alden’s new production of Gianni Schicchi is quite brilliant, and one of the funniest, cleverest things you’ll see in an opera house. Puccini’s taut one-acter is difficult to mess up, but it takes some skill... Read more... |
Best of 2014: OperaSaturday, 27 December 2014
When everything works – conducting, singing, production, costumes, sets, lighting, choreography where relevant – then there’s nothing like the art of opera. But how often does that happen? In my experience, very seldom, but not this year. It's been... Read more... |
