thu 17/07/2025

18th century

Nightmare in Aix: Sarah Connolly on a shocking first night

I felt so shocked by the events that took place during the premiere of Handel’s Ariodante on 3 July in the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence last week, and so disappointed that our painstaking work with director Richard Jones over the last six weeks had...

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Pinnock's Passions, Handel's Garden, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

The latest in a series of "Pinnock’s Passions" concerts at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse saw the doyen of period instrument performance lead a delightful exploration of Handel the musical borrower, entitled "Handel’s Garden". As Trevor Pinnock writes...

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La finta giardiniera, Glyndebourne

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...

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Listed: 10 Mozart Operas You've Never Heard (of)

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...

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San Giovanni Battista/The Cooper, Guildhall Milton Court Theatre

The practical considerations and limitations of choosing a work for a student showcase can lead to some wonderfully original programming. It doesn’t get much more original than a pairing of Thomas Arne’s ballad opera The Cooper with Stradella’s...

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Gilchrist, Bevan, OAE, Devine, QEH

Of all the epithets you could pin on that roast beef of Old England, William Boyce, “gamechanger” is one of the more unlikely. Like any good 18th-century Englishman, this composer followed the widespread Italianate model of the late Baroque, infused...

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Belle

Sadly the battle to shape stories from a female perspective, or even to tell stories about women is far from over. The Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University recently found that women represented only...

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Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Sex farce, class comedy, crime thriller, existential tragedy, supernatural shocker - Don Giovanni is, as Jonathan Kent notes about his production in the Glyndebourne programme, a cabinet of curiosities. Mozart's music hurdles to and fro across two...

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Der Rosenkavalier, Glyndebourne

What spontaneous use might a silver rose take on after its formal presentation by a chubby cherub of a cavalier to a bartered bride-to-be? This and a thousand other score-co-ordinated details are things you never can predict in the hands of that...

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CD: Coldplay - Ghost Stories

They say the devil has all the best tunes, but melancholia is another source of musical inspiration. Coldplay’s new album is the product of a period of emotional turmoil in lead vocalist Chris Martin’s life – the much–publicized ‘uncoupling’ from...

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Così fan tutte, English National Opera

 A cheeky series of signs raised at the start of Phelim McDermott’s new Così fan tutte for English National Opera promise “Big Arias”, “Intrigue”, “Lust” and “Chocolate” (among other things). Big pledges, all. And almost all delivered by this...

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Apollo's Fire, St John's Smith Square

Last time I saw Apollo's Fire perform they danced. Halfway through the concert the chamber orchestra just put music stands aside, continued playing their instruments, and broke into a stately minuet on the Wigmore Hall stage. Nothing quite so...

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