Opera
theartsdesk in Göttingen: Handel for allSaturday, 03 June 2017
"Love is in the air," croons or rather bellows presenter Juri Tetzlaff, getting his audience of adults and children to bellow back the wordless refrain, arms swaying above their heads. Mezzo Sophie Rennert, dragged up as noble Lotario, and soprano... Read more... |
La Rondine, Opera Holland ParkFriday, 02 June 2017
When are the big international opera houses going to wake up to the great British talent that is Elizabeth Llewellyn? With her opulent soprano – shaded middle register, full bloom at the top, cutting chest voice – she was born to sing... Read more... |
L'Orfeo, EBS, Gardiner, Colston Hall, BristolMonday, 29 May 2017
This last of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s semi-staged Monteverdi series took us back practically to the very start of the whole genre. L’Orfeo was presented in Mantua in 1607 as a court opera, and will have been seen and heard by a fraction of the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Soprano Aida GarifullinaSaturday, 27 May 2017
There are certain roles where you’re lucky to catch one perfect incarnation in a lifetime. I thought I'd never see a soprano as Natasha in Prokofiev's War and Peace equal to Yelena Prokina, Valery Gergiev’s choice for Graham Vick’s 1991 production.... Read more... |
The Mikado review - Sasha Regan's all-male operetta formula hits a reefThursday, 25 May 2017
Men playing boys playing girls, women and men, all female parts convincingly falsettoed and high musical standards as backbone: Sasha Regan's single-sex Gilbert and Sullivan has worked a special magic on Iolanthe and The Pirates of Penzance, HMS... Read more... |
Sebestyén, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer, RFHWednesday, 24 May 2017
This was a very fine concert indeed, plus a lot more. The first half was a very carefully planned series of unveilings around the theme of Béla Bartók and Hungarian folk music, the second an overwhelming performance of his Duke Bluebeard’s... Read more... |
Hipermestra / La Traviata, GlyndebourneMonday, 22 May 2017
A Saudi princess in her white wedding dress digs her own grave as men pile up stones to hurl at her head — next, an Isis fighter is stabbing a knife at her neck to decapitate her. Ah, the fate of the heroine of the average baroque ... Read more... |
Y Tŵr, MTW, Sherman Theatre, CardiffSaturday, 20 May 2017
Until yesterday my only experience of the Welsh language in the opera house was a few isolated passages in Iain Bell’s In Parenthesis last year and the surtitles WNO routinely put up alongside the English in the Millennium Centre. Now Guto Puw, a 46... Read more... |
Ariodante, The English Concert, Bicket, BarbicanWednesday, 17 May 2017
To hear The English Concert playing Handel is to arrive in technicolour Oz after a lifetime of black and white baroque in Kansas. We’re not short on period bands in the UK, but few bring this music into anything like the kind of focus that Harry... Read more... |
Turandot, Opera NorthMonday, 15 May 2017
I’ve seen the future, and it’s semi-staged. The gains here are far more significant than the losses. And where Opera North’s minimalist Leeds Town Hall Ring let Peter Mumford’s video projections fill in the gaps, this new production of Turandot... Read more... |
L'Incoronazione di Poppea, EBS, Gardiner, Colston Hall, BristolTuesday, 09 May 2017
Whatever musicologists may tell us about the patchy authenticity of Monteverdi’s last two operas, they unquestionably make a pair. Il ritorno di Ulisse is all about fidelity and ends with a love duet between the reunited husband and wife. L’... Read more... |
Doctor Atomic, BBCSO, Adams, BarbicanWednesday, 26 April 2017
Bomb-dropping is the new black again in Trump's dysfunctional America. Awareness of that contributed to the crackling cloud of dynamic dread hanging over last night's concert staging of John Adams's opera-oratorio - my description, not his - about... Read more... |
