Opera
The Marriage of Figaro, English National Opera review - sassy, probing and splendidly castFriday, 30 March 2018
One year to Brexit, a seemingly endless winter chill and Londoners need soul food, badly. I prescribe an evening of total immersion in The Marriage of Figaro. ENO’s second revival of Fiona Shaw’s sassy, probing production (with revival director... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Lucerne Easter Festival: Haitink, Schiff and an alternative PassionFriday, 30 March 2018
Anyone passionate about great conducting would jump at the chance to hear 89-year-old Bernard Haitink giving three days of masterclasses with eight young practitioners of the art, his eighth and possibly last series in Lucerne (though he's not... Read more... |
Ariadne auf Naxos, Scottish Opera review - superb singing in slick new productionTuesday, 27 March 2018
"The Show must go on". So say the posters dotted around Glasgow and Edinburgh for Scottish Opera's production of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. Except on Thursday, it didn’t. A fire at a nearby Glasgow nightclub which ravaged several city... Read more... |
Glyndebourne Opera Cup - a view from insideTuesday, 27 March 2018
I was on a panel of six critics convened to choose the winner of a special "media award" at the Glyndebourne Opera Cup on Saturday evening. What follows is therefore not a review, but rather a chance to chew over the concept and its highs (and... Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, RNCM, Manchester review – an urban dreamMonday, 19 March 2018
Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel is a ‘"fairytale opera" (its composer’s description), and yet one characteristic frequently commented on is its "Wagnerian" scoring. For this production, with David Pountney’s English translation, the RNCM... Read more... |
La traviata, English National Opera review - into a vortex of ineptitudeSaturday, 17 March 2018
You don't have to be a good director to manage the artistic side of an opera house. Daniel Kramer arrived at ENO and boosted morale at a time when company relations with then-CEO Cressida Pollock had hit rock bottom, and his repertoire choices for... Read more... |
Wake, Birmingham Opera Company review - power to the peopleThursday, 15 March 2018
“Would you like a veil?” asked a steward, offering a length of black gauze, and when you’re at a production by Birmingham Opera Company it’s usually wisest to say yes. You get used to it - the frantic Google-mapping to locate the venue; the hike... Read more... |
Rinaldo, The English Concert, Barbican review - Bicket's band steals the spotlightWednesday, 14 March 2018
It was the work with which Handel conquered London, the Italian opera that finally wooed a suspicious English audience to the charms of Dr Johnson’s “exotic and irrational entertainment”. Three hundred years later, neither Rinaldo nor London’s... Read more... |
From the House of the Dead, Royal Opera review - Janáček's prison oddity prompts hot tearsThursday, 08 March 2018
A political prisoner is brutally initiated into the life of a state penitentiary, and leaves it little over 90 minutes later. Four inmates reveal their brutal past histories with elliptical strangeness - each would need an episode of something like... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, ENO review - shiveringly beautiful BrittenFriday, 02 March 2018
“What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” Hang on a minute, Tytania, there are no flowers. Instead, as Britten’s ominously low strings slither and tremble up and down the scale, the curtain rises on a huge, near-acidic emerald green hilly slope... Read more... |
Dialogues des Carmélites, Guildhall School review - calm and humane drama of faithTuesday, 27 February 2018
One question dominates any staging of Dialogues des Carmélites. How will the production team deal with the cruelty and tragedy in the 12th and last scene when all of the nuns, one by one, go through with their vow of martyrdom and calmly proceed to... Read more... |
La Vie Parisienne, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire review - vintage champagne in a new bottleFriday, 23 February 2018
Don’t you just love that new concert hall smell? The main hall at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is so new that as soon as you walk in you get the scent of fresh woodwork; so new, in fact, that it won’t even be officially opened until next... Read more... |
