Opera
La clemenza di Tito, Glyndebourne review - fine musical manoeuvres in the darkThursday, 27 July 2017
So much light in the Glyndebourne production of Brett Dean's Hamlet; so much darkness in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito according to director Claus Guth. Something is irredeemably rotten in the state of ancient Rome, at odds with the fundamental... Read more... |
Robin Ticciati on conducting Mozart - 'I wanted to create a revolution in the minds of the players'Wednesday, 26 July 2017
When Glyndebourne's Music Director Robin Ticciati conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the new production of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito starting tonight, you can be sure that it will sound utterly fresh, startling even. As did... Read more... |
Le nozze di Figaro, Clonter Opera review - a wedding full of future starsMonday, 24 July 2017
Clonter Opera is a finishing school for young opera performers, with its own well appointed theatre and professional administration and artistic direction, based on a farm in Cheshire near Jodrell Bank. It’s seen a succession of promising young post... Read more... |
Prom 9 review: Fidelio, BBCPO, Mena - classy prison drama rarely blazesSaturday, 22 July 2017
What a pity Beethoven never composed an appendage to Fidelio called The Sorrows of Young Marzelline. One crucial moment apart, the music he gives to his second soprano in his only opera isn't his best, but Louise Alder so lived the role of the... Read more... |
Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Performance, Royal Opera review - vocal promise, poor stagecraftTuesday, 18 July 2017
They get to work with the best music and language coaches in the business. They make their mark in small parts throughout the Royal Opera season and showcase their art more prominently at the end of it, proving to the world that there are major... Read more... |
Katya Kabanova, Opera Holland Park review - clarity and pace in Janáček's Volga tragedyMonday, 17 July 2017
Katya Kabanova is an ideal fit for Opera Holland Park’s verismo-focussed programming. It’s Czech, of course, but the dramatic style is very close to the Italian opera of the day, the story all gritty realism, the music punctuated with intense... Read more... |
Enter theartsdesk's Young Reviewer of the Year AwardSaturday, 15 July 2017
The Hospital Club’s annual h.Club100 awards celebrate the most influential and innovative people working in the UK’s creative industries, with nominations from the worlds of film and fashion, art, advertising, theatre, music, television and more.... Read more... |
El-Khoury, Spyres, Hallé, Rizzi, Cadogan Hall review - bel canto lives againSaturday, 15 July 2017
Unless you're an undiscriminating fan of bel canto, the lesser Italian and French operas of the 1830s and '40s - that's to say, not Verdi's Nabucco and Macbeth or Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini - need to be approached with caution. Once you've lowered... Read more... |
The Magic Flute, Longborough Festival review - sparkling and movingFriday, 14 July 2017
About The Magic Flute there’s a certain amount of domestic theatre and a great deal of pantomime. It calls for fun, sentiment, movement, a measure of spectacle, and plenty of direct communication with the audience. But like the mechanicals’ play in... Read more... |
Buxton Festival review - early Verdi, earlier Mozart and refreshing BrittenMonday, 10 July 2017
“The subject is neither political nor religious; it is fantastical” wrote Verdi to the librettist Piave about his opera Macbeth. “The opera is not about the rise of a modern fascist: nor is it about political tyranny. It is a study in character”... Read more... |
Pick of the 2017 BBC Proms: from Orthodox chant to Oklahoma!Saturday, 08 July 2017
It’s the best-looking Proms season on paper for quite a few years. That might just be a different way of saying we like it, but no-one could reproach Director David Pickard for lack of original programming or diversity (look at the whole, bigger... Read more... |
BambinO / Last And First Men, Manchester International FestivalFriday, 07 July 2017
The Manchester International Festival – a biennale of new creative work – this year has a new artistic director in John McGrath, and there’s no large-scale new opera or prominent "classical" work, it would seem, other than Raymond Yiu’s song cycle,... Read more... |
