Britten
The Turn of the Screw, ENO, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - one dimension, not fourTuesday, 26 June 2018
Opera and music theatre have set the birds shrilling in Regent's Park before in the shape of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess – a very forgettable production – and Sondheim's Into the Woods – much better, and a score which can give any 20th century opera a... Read more... |
Michael Chance on continuing opera in Hampshire: 'good people like to work with good people'Wednesday, 06 June 2018
Out of the blue comes a phone call. A freelance career is based on those to a certain extent. Certainly mine has been. But this one was a bit different. “Would you come and talk to us about the way forward?”. I soon learnt that what this actually... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, ENO review - shiveringly beautiful BrittenFriday, 02 March 2018
“What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” Hang on a minute, Tytania, there are no flowers. Instead, as Britten’s ominously low strings slither and tremble up and down the scale, the curtain rises on a huge, near-acidic emerald green hilly slope... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Morton Feldman, Maria MarchantSaturday, 14 October 2017
Bach: Keyboard Concertos, Italian Concerto Sonya Bach (piano), English Chamber Orchestra/John Mills and Stephanie Gonley (leaders) (Rubicon)There's no shortage of decent recordings of Bach concertos played on piano. I’d probably rescue my Murray... Read more... |
Prom 13 review: Rana, BBCSO, Davis – Malcolm Sargent tribute lacks punchTuesday, 25 July 2017
Ten days ago I reviewed the First Night of the 2017 Proms. Last night I was back at the Royal Albert Hall to hear the First Night of the 1966 Proms. This time-capsule experience was courtesy of a re-enactment of Sir Malcolm Sargent’s 500th Prom, 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... |
'Oh, the glamour!' - Roderick Williams weighs up a singer's lifeThursday, 06 July 2017
“So, what do you do for a living?” You might think this question, the mainstay of any polite conversation with a new acquaintance, would be just the moment any opera singer would relish. Here is the chance to declare who we are, what we do, and to... Read more... |
Albert Herring, The Grange Festival review - playing it straight yields classic comedy goldMonday, 26 June 2017
Perfect comedies for the country-house opera scene? Mozart's Figaro and Così, Strauss's Ariadne - and Britten's Albert Herring, now 70 years and a few days old, but as ageless as the rest. With the passing of time it's ever more obvious that this... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Snape MaltingsSaturday, 10 June 2017
It’s all there in the first few bars of Britten’s music – that unsettling tension between beauty and familiarity, and eerie, undefinable otherness. Those cello glissandi might end in glowing major chords, but the tentacle-like slides throw them into... Read more... |
'The challenge is to make something of not very much': Iestyn Davies on Britten's OberonThursday, 08 June 2017
Tomorrow Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream will begin a short run at the Snape Maltings, Suffolk in a new production directed by Netia Jones and conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. It will mark the high point of the Aldeburgh Festival’s summer... Read more... |
Little, CBSO, Seal, Symphony Hall BirminghamFriday, 02 June 2017
The CBSO is justifiably proud of its association with Benjamin Britten. There’s rather less proof that he reciprocated, dismissing the orchestra as "second-rate" after it premiered his War Requiem in 1962. Throughout the 1950s, he’d repeatedly... Read more... |
Gerhardt, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings PlaceMonday, 09 January 2017
What's not to like, or love, would have to be the sensible response to both the opening programme of Kings Place's year-long Cello Unwrapped festival at Kings Place and its life-enhancing execution. Symmetries abounded – between Alban Gerhardt's... Read more... |
