WNO
Le Vin herbé, Welsh National OperaFriday, 17 February 2017
Wagner’s Tristan left a huge mark on fin de siècle art, on the symbolist poets, even on their pseudonyms; Debussy himself toyed with a four-act opera on the subject. And his version, if he had ever composed it, would have been an intriguing... Read more... |
Best of 2016: OperaThursday, 29 December 2016
It was the best and worst of years for English National Opera. Best, because principals, chorus and orchestra seem united in acclaiming their Music Director of 14 months, Mark Wigglesworth, for his work at a level most had only dreamed of (“from the... Read more... |
Kiss Me, Kate, Welsh National OperaFriday, 30 September 2016
There are two ways of reacting to an opera company like WNO staging a musical like Kiss Me, Kate. You can ask yourself whether this is work that an opera house should concern itself with at all. Or you can take Confucius’s advice, and just lie back... Read more... |
Prom 25: Gerhardt, Komlósi, Relyea, RPO, DutoitThursday, 04 August 2016
"Let the song speak, I pray," exhorts the Bard in the Prologue to Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, "Listen in silence." This was a night for leaning in and listening closely, despite the large forces arrayed on stage for Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and Bartók’s... Read more... |
Kommilitonen, Welsh National Youth Opera, BarryFriday, 29 July 2016
What happened was this. I found my way, not without difficulty, to the Barry Memo Arts Centre, got my ticket, had a chat with the librettist, stopped to order an interval drink, then turned round to discover that the entire audience had disappeared... Read more... |
Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, Welsh National OperaFriday, 27 May 2016
Seventy years ago, almost to the month, Welsh National Opera took to the stage for the first time with a double bill of the terrible twins, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci; and fifty years later the company celebrated with the same two works... Read more... |
In Parenthesis, Welsh National OperaSaturday, 14 May 2016
War may be a dramatic affair for anyone involved in it, but staging it is another matter. In fact describing it satisfactorily at all needs either a Tolstoyan flair for the large canvas, or else a poetic genius for directing its force inwards, into... Read more... |
Figaro Gets a Divorce, Welsh National OperaMonday, 22 February 2016
The third of Beaumarchais’s Figaro plays, La Mère coupable, is a very different affair from the other two, in that it records actual adultery and its disastrous consequences (including Cherubino’s death in battle), as opposed to the largely comic... Read more... |
The Marriage of Figaro, Welsh National OperaFriday, 19 February 2016
From the more or less inconsequential wit and bravura of The Barber of Seville to the profound comic psychology, social nuances and unparalleled musical genius of The Marriage of Figaro, and from the silly antics of Sam Brown’s Rossini to the style... Read more... |
The Barber of Seville, Welsh National OperaSunday, 14 February 2016
The latest themed season from WNO, to add to their fallen women, Donizetti queens and what not, goes by the slightly worrying title (for anyone with a short attention span) of “Figaro Forever”, and consists of an operatic sequence derived from... 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... |
A Christmas Carol, Welsh National OperaSaturday, 19 December 2015
Dickens’s public readings from his novels were almost as famous and popular as the novels themselves. He would write special scripts that gave prominence to particular characters and that dramatized the salient events of each story; and of all these... Read more... |
