Opera
The Barber of Seville, Longborough FestivalFriday, 04 July 2014
Speaking from the stage before curtain-up on The Barber, Longborough’s founder and chairman, Martin Graham, stressed the hard work put in by director Richard Studer and conductor Jonathan Lyness on their two 2014 productions, this one and Tosca. He... Read more... |
The Turn of the Screw, Opera Holland ParkWednesday, 02 July 2014
“Is this sheltered place the wicked world where things unspoken of have been?” The Governess’s question echoes through the careful suggestions and delicate temporal interweavings of Annilese Miskimmon’s The Turn of the Screw, twisting smiles into... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Mezzo-soprano and Director Brigitte FassbaenderMonday, 30 June 2014
The mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender, who will be 75 on Thursday 3 July, was unsurpassed for dramatic impact and presence in roles such as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, during a singing career which spanned... Read more... |
La finta giardiniera, GlyndebourneSunday, 29 June 2014
There are two avenues down which to approach the well-kept flower beds of Mozart’s early operas. One is to be surprised how rarely the muse of fire which rages through Idomeneo, his first undisputed masterpiece, descends on a work composed just a... Read more... |
Listed: 10 Mozart Operas You've Never Heard (of)Saturday, 28 June 2014
Mozart operas – we’ve all been there, whistled the arias, untangled the love triangles (quadrants/pentagons), dabbled in some cross-dressing, and sung a rousing chorus of general forgiveness. But for every ubiquitous Don Giovanni or Le Nozze di... Read more... |
First Person: Who is Mozart's fake garden girl?Saturday, 28 June 2014
La finta giardiniera is about seven characters in search of love. They are all pretending to some extent – they are not being truthful to themselves. It’s a classic Mozartian conceit which comes back in Così fan tutte in particular but also in Le... Read more... |
Win a pair of tickets for Don Giovanni at GlyndebourneThursday, 26 June 2014
We have a pair of tickets to give away to the performance on 13 July of Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s revival of Don Giovanni, directed by Jonathan Kent. All you need to do is answer the follow three questions. The answers can be found in the... Read more... |
Ariadne auf Naxos, Royal OperaThursday, 26 June 2014
Can it really be 12 years since Antonio Pappano inaugurated his transformative era as the Royal Opera’s Music Director conducting Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos? Christof Loy’s production seemed so radical at the time. We were put off our guard by... Read more... |
Tosca, Longborough FestivalWednesday, 25 June 2014
For Longborough to open their new season with Tosca after last summer’s triumphant Wagner is to invoke Joseph Kerman’s famous diatribe against Puccini’s “shabby little shocker” in his fifties book Opera as Drama. Kerman used Wagner’s theories to... Read more... |
Don Quichotte, Grange Park OperaTuesday, 24 June 2014
Grange Park Opera has a strong penchant for French repertoire, and has been valiant, consistent and highly imaginative in presenting it ever since 1998, when Wasfi Kani and Michael Moody first started inviting opera-goers to the unique setting of a... Read more... |
The Cunning Little Vixen, Garsington OperaMonday, 23 June 2014
Rolling hills with beech-rich woods sloping upwards from a wide valley: the Wormsley Estate has more than a little in common with glorious Hukvaldy in Moravia, where Janáček was born and ended his life, and where in old age he once again saw "... Read more... |
Glyndebourne: the Untold History, BBC FourMonday, 23 June 2014
Celebrating the 80th anniversary of opera at Glyndebourne, this 90-minute documentary was fascinating when it delved into the house's history, but started to lose its bearings when it came back to the present day and dwelt at laborious length over... Read more... |
