Opera Reviews
Tamerlano, Il Pomo d'Oro, Emelyanychev, BarbicanWednesday, 11 November 2015
The curse of Tamerlano strikes again. The last time London saw Handel’s darkest and most sober opera was in 2010. Graham Vick’s production for the Royal Opera House lost its unlikely star Placido Domingo before it even opened in London, ran interminably long and lost any emotional impetus somewhere in the course of its three-and-a-half hours. Read more...
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The Force of Destiny, English National OperaTuesday, 10 November 2015
Verdi’s dark tale gets even darker in this new staging from Calixto Bieito. He updates the story to the Spanish Civil War, a setting with plenty of opportunity for his trademark violence but also offering illuminating parallels on the story itself. ENO has assembled a fine cast for the occasion, and the musical direction, from Mark Wigglesworth, is dynamic and dramatically engaged. Read more... |
The Drummer Boy of Waterloo, Jubilee Hall, AldeburghMonday, 09 November 2015
Back in 1949, Britten’s Let’s Make an Opera, with its enduring second part The Little Sweep, blazed a trail for children’s opera in Aldeburgh’s Jubilee Hall. Little has changed about this generously-sized village institute – a funding appeal for much-needed renovations is under way – and Jenni Wake-Walker’s Jubilee Opera is still waving the banner for music education with works that make the right sort of demands. Read more... |
Le Donne Curiose, Guildhall SchoolThursday, 05 November 2015
Scintillating gems scattered rather thinly through long-winded operas: that superficial impression of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s often delectable music isn’t going to be changed greatly by seeing his first success of 1903, Le donne curiose (“Nosy Women”, perhaps, or, if you want a better English title “The Merry Men of Venice”). Read more... |
Tosca, Wales Millennium CentreTuesday, 03 November 2015
There’s a good deal to be said for semi-staged opera. It concentrates the mind in a particular way; it brings the orchestra more fully into the action; it moves the singers closer to the audience; and above all it reduces – even removes – the power of the director to superimpose some crackpot notion of his or her own on the dramaturgic design of the composer and librettist. Read more... |
Carmen, Royal BalletWednesday, 28 October 2015
Carlos Acosta is that rare 21st-century phenomenon – a performer who has become a household name without the help of reality TV. Even people who run a mile from ballet know the story of the Havana slum boy made good through perseverance and pure talent, from countless primetime documentaries as well as a self-penned book and stage show. Read more... |
Le Pré aux Clercs, Wexford Festival OperaWednesday, 28 October 2015
“No courtier or lady’s champion would dream of fighting a duel anywhere else…” The setting for duels, liaisons, champagne and love, Paris’s Pré aux Clercs gives its name to Ferdinand Herold’s almost-comic 1832 opera – a welcome mood-lightener in this season’s otherwise tragic fare at the Wexford Festival. Read more... |
The Turn of the Screw, Aurora Orchestra, LSO St Luke'sTuesday, 27 October 2015
A Hawksmoor church ought to be the right setting for the psychological terror of Britten’s great chamber opera, a slanted but still chilling adaptation of Henry James's novella. True, the once-deroofed interior has been coolly revamped as a rehearsal and performance venue, but imaginative lighting and a clear acting space, with room for a 13-piece ensemble to the side, ought to do the trick. Read more... |
Das Liebesverbot, Chelsea Opera Group, Cadogan HallMonday, 26 October 2015
Castanets in Wagner? The imperfect Wagnerite will identify them in one place only: the Venusberg ballet music of the Paris Tannhäuser. The perfect variety will know that they’re also to be found in the overture and carnival scene of Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love). Read more... |
The Tales of Hoffmann / Werther, English Touring OperaSunday, 25 October 2015
It would spoil the surprise to say what exactly emerges when – after a breathless build-up and a few glimpses of a seductive silhouette – the living doll Olympia finally makes her entrance in Act One of English Touring Opera’s new production of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. Let’s just say that it’s startling, beautiful, strange and ever-so-slightly spooky. In a word: uncanny. In an even better word: Hoffmannesque. Read more... |
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