Opera
Die tote Stadt, Komische Oper Berlin, OperaVision review – when catharsis goes missingThursday, 04 March 2021
A word about grief. Many of us have learned a lot about it this past year; many knew about it before that. When someone we love dies, we grieve. This is normal. This is human. It is agony, but it’s not actually a mental illness. Having Paul, the... Read more... |
Tony and the Young Artists, Royal Opera/Liebeslieder Waltzes, Blackheath Halls online review - love and joyTuesday, 23 February 2021
Young performers seeking platforms for their careers have had it especially rough over the past year, most slipping through the financial-support net and now facing the further blow of the Brexit visa debacle. So it’s always good to welcome quality... Read more... |
Der Freischütz, Bavarian State Opera online review – marksmen as marketeersMonday, 15 February 2021
Bavarian State Opera has led the way for live performances and associated broadcasts during the pandemic. Their series of weekly “Montagsstück” events have presented innovative chamber operas, specifically for web streaming. Their next goal is full-... Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, Scottish Opera online - bewitching feast for ears but not eyesFriday, 12 February 2021
Christmas isn’t just for Christmas, Daisy Evans’s bargain-basement fir-trees-and-tinsel production of Humperdinck’s evergreen masterpiece seems to be telling us. Filmed in Glasgow’s Theatre Royal last December, the February online premiere doesn’t... Read more... |
Classical musicians on life after Brexit - 4: singers speak outThursday, 11 February 2021
Forget the pandemic, it's Brexit which could ring the death knell for artists who are currently hoarse from begging to be taken seriously as a respected export. From Tchaikovsky to Britten, music itself has always been offered visa free but as the... Read more... |
Netrebko, Met Stars Live in Concert online review - flashy performance from operatic powerhouseTuesday, 09 February 2021
Though the global pandemic has brought about an unprecedented degree of isolation, it’s also, in unusual ways, brought us together too. Visiting New York’s Metropolitan Opera House is currently an impossible dream - the house is still completely... Read more... |
The Turn of the Screw, OperaGlass Works online review - the fright is in the filmingTuesday, 02 February 2021
It’s second time lucky for OperaGlass Works, whose previous production at Wilton’s Music Hall, of Stravinsky’s The Rake's Progress, hit the mark for me in the singing but not the staging. I suspect that had we been there in the auditorium with... Read more... |
Holy Sonnets/The Heart's Assurance/A Charm of Lullabies, English Touring Opera online review - darkest hoursFriday, 29 January 2021
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/ Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” John Donne’s Holy Sonnets may summon all his art of wit and paradox to mock that might and dread; still, we sense the abject terror behind the formal... Read more... |
Romances on British Poetry / The Poet's Echo, English Touring Opera online review - Britten and Shostakovich in a double mirrorTuesday, 26 January 2021
A darkened stage; a pool of light; a solitary figure. And then, flooding the whole thing with meaning, music – even it’s just a soft chord on a piano. It’s no secret to any opera goer that even the barest outlines of a staging can magnify the... Read more... |
Best of 2020: OperaSunday, 27 December 2020
Surreal fantasy came off best this year, before and after the fall. It seems like a decade ago when audiences of all ages were packed tight to crack up - or not get it - at Covent Garden for the UK stage premiere of Gerald Barry's Alice's Adventures... Read more... |
Royal Opera Christmas Concert online review – pajama party around the Nutcracker treeThursday, 24 December 2020
So Hansel and Gretel can’t cuddle up together in the dark forest, Musetta doesn’t fall into long-suffering lover Marcello’s arms and there’s no audience to play to (as there would have been three days earlier). No matter: the Christmas-tree-grown-... Read more... |
Pagliacci, Opera Ensemble, Longborough review - stripped down but liveMonday, 21 December 2020
List all the problems that the pandemic places in the way of operatic performance, and you might well end up wondering why anyone would bother. Opera Ensemble, however, have bothered, in the shape of an accomplished and moving production of... Read more... |
