tragedy
Conspiracy Files: The Trump Dossier, BBC TwoFriday, 04 November 2016
So we’re less than a week away from America’s choice. Many in the States have presented it as a kind of Sophie’s Choice – an unbearable outcome no matter who they choose. On the one hand they have a racist, sexist, braggart bully who has been named... Read more... |
Madama Butterfly, Glyndebourne TourSaturday, 15 October 2016
What would Glyndebourne, staging Madama Butterfly for the first time, bring to Puccini's most heartbreaking tragedy? Subtle realism, perhaps? Certainly the composer, along with his superb librettists Giacosa and Illica, offers plenty of... 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... |
Phaedra(s), Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, BarbicanSaturday, 11 June 2016
Britten fathomed Phaedra's passion for her stepson in a shattering quarter of an hour's dramatic cantata. Euripides' Hippolytus takes about 90 minutes in the playing. Director Kryzsztof Warlikowski's fantasia on the Phaedra myth is more... Read more... |
Oedipe, Royal OperaTuesday, 24 May 2016
"Unjustly neglected masterpiece" is a cliché of musical criticism, and usually an exaggeration. Romanian master Enescu's vast journey through aspects of the Oedipus myth seemed like an unacknowledged great among 20th century operas through the... Read more... |
Kings of War, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, BarbicanMonday, 25 April 2016
Banished from the Barbican are the hollow kings of the mediocre RSC Henrys IV and V. In their place comes a whole new procession of living, breathing monarchs in a vision that's light years away from bad heritage Shakespeare. Doyen of Dutch-Belgian... Read more... |
Iphigénie en Tauride, English Touring OperaSunday, 06 March 2016
Gluck's two operas about the daughter of Agamemnon saved from sacrifice only to serve as priestess-butcher herself have found their level on the contemporary operatic stage. Not that the handful of UK productions or their casts in recent years have... Read more... |
Roméo et Juliette, BBCSO, Davis, BarbicanSaturday, 23 January 2016
It was another Davis, the late Colin rather than the very alive Andrew, who used to be master of Berlioz's phenomenally inventive opera for orchestra with its novel explanatory prologue and epilogue. I like to think he'd have been looking down... Read more... |
Faust, RLPO, Petrenko, Philharmonic Hall, LiverpoolFriday, 13 November 2015
Four years ago, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic embarked on a two-year project to play all the Mahler symphonic works over a couple of seasons. It was an ambitious project but it was one which, then, had hall staff dusting down... Read more... |
Salome, Bournemouth SO, Karabits, Symphony Hall, BirminghamSaturday, 03 October 2015
“How fair is the Princess Salome tonight”! That slithering clarinet run, that glint of moonlight: few operas create their world so instantly and so intoxicatingly. At Symphony Hall, the lights rose on the very back row of the stage, the percussion... Read more... |
Medea, Almeida TheatreFriday, 02 October 2015
With her strong, often fierce features and her convincing simulations of rage, Kate Fleetwood might have been born to play Medea. Unfortunately this isn’t Euripides’ Medea but Rachel Cusk’s free variations on the myth rather than the play. Many... Read more... |
Iliad: War Music, National Theatre WalesSaturday, 26 September 2015
Iliad is the third collaboration between National Theatre Wales and “the two Mikes”, directorial duo Pearson and Brookes. The pair have been responsible for two previous highlights of the still young company’s back catalogue, The Persians (2010) and... Read more... |
