WNO
Jenůfa, Welsh National Opera review - powerful drama with a kitsch tailpieceSunday, 13 March 2022
If like me you regard the ending of Janáček’s Jenůfa as one of the most moving scenes in all opera, you might care to consider how it would be possible to deflate it in spite of the best singing imaginable. You might, for instance, bring up a back... Read more... |
Don Giovanni, Welsh National Opera review - fine young cast let down by unhelpful conductingSaturday, 19 February 2022
If Don Giovanni is not the greatest opera ever written, it’s at least one of the very, very few that even in erratic performances have the capacity to seem it. There was so much wrong, in detail, with WNO’s revival of John Caird’s now eleven year-... Read more... |
Madam Butterfly, Welsh National Opera review - decent performance, disagreeable contextWednesday, 29 September 2021
It’s easy enough to see the difficulty Madam Butterfly places your thinking director in. I share her pain. What the whirring brain will quickly see as a penetrating, or at least surface scratching, study of a whole repertoire of modern obsessions –... Read more... |
The Barber of Seville, Welsh National Opera review - back to work in an old bangerFriday, 10 September 2021
Welcome back, WNO! Yes, emphatically, and with a loud hurrah, which is precisely what the company received, and rightly received, from the somewhat arbitrarily scattered first night Millennium Centre audience for their opening revival of The Barber... Read more... |
Les vêpres siciliennes, Welsh National Opera review - spectacular, silly, but some great musicSunday, 09 February 2020
It’s not hard to see why The Sicilian Vespers has struggled since its surprisingly successful opening run at the Paris Opéra in 1855. Verdi had composed it reluctantly, despised the librettist, Eugène Scribe, who he regarded as a well-named cynical... Read more... |
The Cunning Little Vixen, Welsh National Opera review - family night in the forestSaturday, 12 October 2019
Considering that Janáček’s Vixen is, among other things, an allegory of the passing and returning years, it’s appropriate that WNO continue to recycle David Pountney’s now nearly 40-year-old production, and that it comes up each time refreshed, with... Read more... |
Rigoletto, Welsh National Opera review - same old update, fine performanceSaturday, 28 September 2019
Considering the doubtfulness of its underlying idea, James Macdonald’s production of Rigoletto has shown remarkable staying power since its Cardiff début 17 years ago. It’s true that this particular opera - which, unlike one or two others of Verdi’s... Read more... |
Carmen, Welsh National Opera review - intermittent brilliance in a gloomy, unclear environmentSunday, 22 September 2019
You can love Carmen as much as you like (as much as I do, for instance), and still have a certain sympathy for the poor director who has to find something new to say about a work so anchored in a particular style and place. For all its musical and... Read more... |
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2019 Final, BBC Four review - stage confidence, supportive set-upMonday, 24 June 2019
If ever there was an instance of the great being the enemy of the good, it happened after all the live singing on Saturday night. This year we all remember, with sadness for his early death and amazement at his burning, burnished talent, the... Read more... |
Brundibár, Welsh National Opera review - bittersweet children's opera from the ghettoMonday, 24 June 2019
Politics, in case you may not have noticed, has been in the air of late: questions of escape, release, borders, refugees, things like that. So WNO’s June season of operas about freedom has been suspiciously well timed. We’ve had the dead man walking... Read more... |
The Magic Flute, Welsh National Opera review - charming to hear, charmless to look atSaturday, 16 February 2019
I last saw this Magic Flute, directed by Dominic Cooke, when it was new, some 14 years ago, and I remember it mainly, I’m afraid, for its lack of visual charm. Nothing much has changed: the relentless box sets (designer Julian Crouch), not a leaf or... Read more... |
Un ballo in maschera, Welsh National Opera review - opera as brilliant self-parodyMonday, 11 February 2019
Why is Un Ballo in maschera not as popular as the trio of Verdi masterpieces – Rigoletto, Traviata, Trovatore – that, with a couple of digressions, preceded it in the early 1850s? Its music is scarcely less brilliant than theirs, and if its plot is... Read more... |
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