Opera
Robin Hood, The Opera Story, CLF Café review - folk hero re-imagined as Tory villainWednesday, 06 March 2019
What’s the one thing everyone knows about Robin Hood? That he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. So it was quite a brave decision to re-cast Robin as a rapacious Tory shires MP, doing his best to stop the poor becoming rich. At least, I... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Guildhall School review - earthy, energetic BrittenMonday, 04 March 2019
It speaks vivid volumes for the superb health of our music colleges that the Guildhall School tackles every aspect of Britten's long and layered Shakespeare adaptation with total confidence. On Friday night, there wasn't a weak expressive link... Read more... |
The Merry Widow, English National Opera review - glitter but no sparkleSaturday, 02 March 2019
It’s all there. High kicks and tight corsets; silk and sequins and shenanigans in a broom closet; hot pinks and still hotter can-can girls; waltzing, scheming, sparring, and a bit with a banquet table. There’s even a dancing beaver. So why don’t I... Read more... |
Così fan tutte, Royal Opera review - fine singing and elegant deceitsWednesday, 27 February 2019
Give hope to all, says Despina: play-act. Così fan tutte has always been a piece about four young and silly people being appalling to one another without much need for encouragement from a cynical old manipulator and a confused maid who, in the main... Read more... |
The Monstrous Child, Royal Opera, Linbury Theatre review - fresh operatic mythology for teenagersFriday, 22 February 2019
Hel, heroine of Gavin Higgins and Francesca Simon’s new opera, is the illegitimate daughter of the Norse god Loki. In many ways The Monstrous Child itself feels like a bastard offspring, born – moody, mouthy and full of fragile rage – to Wagner’s... Read more... |
The Rite of Spring/Gianni Schicchi, Opera North review - unlikely but musically satisfying pairingSunday, 17 February 2019
Stravinsky acknowledged that his orchestra for The Rite of Spring was a large one because Diaghilev had promised him extra musicians (“I am not sure that my orchestra would have been as huge otherwise.”) It isn’t huge in Opera North’s production... 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... |
Brighton Festival 2019 launches with Guest Director Rokia TraoréWednesday, 13 February 2019
The striking cover for the Brighton Festival 2019 programme shouts out loud who this year’s Guest Director is. Silhouetted in flowers, in stunning artwork by Simon Prades, is the unmistakeable profile of Malian musician Rokia Traoré. Taking place... Read more... |
Akhnaten, English National Opera review - still a mesmerising spectacleTuesday, 12 February 2019
You start off fighting it. Those arpeggios, the insistent reduction, simplification, repetition, the amplification of the smallest gesture into an epic. Then something happens. Somewhere among the slow-phase patterns pulsing on ear and eye, you... 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... |
La Damnation de Faust, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - 'concert opera' indeedMonday, 11 February 2019
Berlioz called it a "concert opera". His telling of the Faust story is in scenes and highly theatrical, but a bit of a challenge to put on in the theatre, with its marching armies, floating sylphs, dancing will-o’-the-wisps and galloping horses. It... Read more... |
Anthropocene, Hackney Empire review - vivid soundscapes but not quite enough thrillsFriday, 08 February 2019
The flayed corpse of a dead seal hangs red and grotesque at the back of the stage. It’s a placeholder; we know that by the end of Anthropocene – Scottish composer Stuart McRae’s latest collaboration with librettist Louise Welsh – something more... Read more... |
