Opera
theartsdesk in Stockholm - HK Gruber and sacred monstersWednesday, 29 November 2017
It was excellent, flesh-creepy fun back in 1978, when a young Simon Rattle conducted the Liverpool world premiere with the composer declaiming, but how well has Austrian maverick H(einz) K(arl) "Nali" Gruber's "pandemonium" for chansonnier and... Read more... |
Falstaff, RLPO, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall review - Bryn Terfel leads a merry danceMonday, 27 November 2017
Even seemingly immortal singers grow old. Sir Bryn is closer to the "Martinmas summer" of Shakespeare's and Verdi's Sir John than when first he put on the fat suit at the Royal Opera 18 years ago. Even if he walks the gouty walk that matches the... Read more... |
The Bear, Mid Wales Opera review - small stage, big ambitionsSaturday, 25 November 2017
Go west, opera-lover: Mid Wales Opera is back in business. In fact, it’s been back since spring this year, when it toured venues in Wales and England with a warmly reviewed Handel Semele and a striking (and impressively cast) Magic Flute inspired by... Read more... |
Remembering Dmitri Hvorostovsky (1962-2017)Friday, 24 November 2017
A certain online scandalmonger and coffin-chaser likes to preface news of deaths in the musical world with "sadness" or "tragedy", usually when neither he nor we have heard of the person in question. But the end of Dmitri Hvorostovsky's two-and-a-... Read more... |
The Rake's Progress, Wilton's Music Hall review - mercurial Stravinsky made cumbersomeTuesday, 21 November 2017
If you're not going to mention the imaginative genius of Stravinsky, Auden and Kallman within the covers of your programme, and the only article, by the director, is titled "Acting Naturally", then the production had better deliver. That remarkable... Read more... |
Semiramide, Royal Opera review - Rossini's Queen is backMonday, 20 November 2017
It has long been a mystery why no new production of Semiramide should have been staged at Covent Garden since 1887: un offesa terribile considering that this splendid melodramma tragico should have been the inaugural production of the Royal Italian... Read more... |
Marnie, English National Opera review – hyped new opera doesn’t hit the heightsSunday, 19 November 2017
The great and good of the London music scene were gathered at English National Opera last night for the unveiling of American Wunderkind Nico Muhly’s new opera, Marnie. Although it was commissioned by the Met in New York, somehow ENO managed to... Read more... |
'Singers must act better than ever before'Sunday, 12 November 2017
"Vary the song, O London, change!" sings Tom Rakewell as he tires of the great metropolis. WH Auden and Chester Kallman's libretto for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress strikes a chord with me too. London has magnificent opera but, at the top end, it... Read more... |
Lucia di Lammermoor, Royal Opera review - creepy, violent and intenseTuesday, 31 October 2017
Katie Mitchell’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor opened at Covent Garden in 2016 and now returns for a first revival. Royal Opera were clearly expecting great things, even from the start, and this is the third cast to have presented the show,... Read more... |
The Consul, Guildhall School review - blowsy melodrama rooted by committed studentsTuesday, 31 October 2017
Fancy that: the day after the last major Menotti staging I can remember in the UK, The Medium at the Edinburgh Festival, "splendid piece of post-Puccinian grand guignol" turned up in two different reviews (moral: don't discuss the performance with... Read more... |
Crowe, The English Concert, Bicket, Milton Court review - Mozartian prima-donna perfectionThursday, 26 October 2017
Singing students from the Guildhall School should have been issued with a three-line whip to fill the inexplicably half-empty Milton Court concert hall for last night's charmer. After all, every musician, and not just sopranos, should know that this... Read more... |
Written On Skin, Melos Sinfonia, LSO St Luke's review - an ambitious musical achievementSunday, 22 October 2017
Beautiful though Katie Mitchell’s original production of Written on Skin is, George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s opera has always felt more at home in the concert hall. Last year’s Barbican performance put Benjamin’s meticulous orchestral writing... Read more... |
