Opera
The World's Wife, Wales Millennium Centre, Weston Studio review - the power and frustration behind the throneMonday, 16 October 2017
How many dead female composers can you name? Tom Green, the composer of this stunning one-woman show, could initially only think of five (I managed thirteen while waiting for the show to start, but then I’ve been around somewhat longer than he has,... Read more... |
Lucy Worsley's Nights at the Opera, BBC Two review - there's anti-elitism, and there's infantilismSunday, 15 October 2017
The first thing to say about Lucy Worsley’s Nights at the Opera (BBC Two) is that it is laser-aimed at those who have not enjoyed many nights at the opera. Enjoyed in the sense of attended; also, probably, in the sense of enjoyed. Anyone who is a... Read more... |
Osud/Trouble in Tahiti, Opera North - swings and roundabouts in a surprising double-billThursday, 12 October 2017
It was a topsy-turvy evening. Sometimes the things you expect to turn out best disappoint, while in this case the relatively small beer yielded a true "Little Great" of a production and the best singing in Opera North's latest double bill (subject... Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, Pop-Up Opera review - salty-sweet production takes wry pleasure in classic fairytaleWednesday, 11 October 2017
They’ve done it in a boat and a barn, a former poorhouse and even a tunnel shaft, and now Pop-Up Opera bring their latest production to a museum. Bethnal Green’s 19th-century Museum of Childhood provides an evocative frame for Engelbert Humperdinck’... Read more... |
From the House of the Dead, Welsh National Opera review - elderly staging, music comes up freshMonday, 09 October 2017
This week is Prison Week in the Christian Churches, and it would be nice, if fanciful, to think that WNO programmed their revival of Janáček’s From the House of the Dead with that in mind. More likely the thinking was that it fitted well enough into... Read more... |
Opera: Passion, Power and Politics, V&A review - seven cities, seven masterpiecesSaturday, 07 October 2017
There's something here for everyone, as a "roll up!" slogan for one of the greatest shows in town might put it. Even opera buffs don't seem to have found much to fault with the cornucopia of sounds, moving pictures, objects, paintings, drawings and... Read more... |
Dardanus, English Touring Opera review - mixed fortunes for warzone updatingSaturday, 07 October 2017
Baroque opera is always a challenge to stage, and Rameau’s Dardanus is no exception. In its original form, the story, of love in times of war, was infused with allegorical characters and mythological scenes. It flopped, and so Rameau and a new... Read more... |
Khovanshchina/Eugene Onegin, Welsh National Opera review - Russian revivals strong and weakMonday, 02 October 2017
About Khovanshchina I once had serious doubts. Leaving aside its unfinished condition, it always struck me as what Wagnerians would call a bleeding chunk of history, unstructured, confused, over-researched and dramaturgically obscure. Three recent... Read more... |
Aida, English National Opera review - heroine almost saves a dismal dayFriday, 29 September 2017
If the best is the enemy of the good, then the excellent is also the enemy of the "meh". And if you can stomach Verdi's Aida, go and see English National Opera’s new production for its central performance by Latonia Moore. In what’s become her... Read more... |
Cavalleria Rusticana/Trial by Jury, Opera North review - sombre triumph and pale frothThursday, 28 September 2017
Pairing Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana with Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury makes for a pleasingly schizoid evening in the latest of Opera North's The Little Greats series. Mascagni’s crashing final chords precede a longish interval, and when... Read more... |
Oedipe, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - Enescu's masterpiece glorious and completeMonday, 25 September 2017
It’s official: Romanian master George Enescu’s four-act Greek epic lives and breathes as a work of transcendent genius. It took last year’s Royal Opera production to lead us further along the path established by the magnificent EMI studio recording... Read more... |
Senza Sangue/Bluebeard's Castle, Hackney Empire - uneven French-Hungarian mixWednesday, 20 September 2017
Has Hackney ever seen or heard such a spectacle – a full Hungarian orchestra taking up most of the Empire stalls to complete the semi-circle of a relatively empty stage? And did enough of London get to hear about it? I certainly wouldn’t have done... Read more... |
