Handel
Niobe, Regina di Tebe, Royal OperaFriday, 24 September 2010
One after the other they came. Stunning aria after stunning aria. Affecting in their harmonies, infectious in their rhythms, arresting in their textures, vivid in their melodies. The Royal Opera had taken a mighty gamble with Agostino Steffani's 300... Read more... |
Jimi Hendrix, Snap Gallery/Handel House MuseumSaturday, 18 September 2010
A soundtrack of "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe" and other eternal Jimi Hendrix hits, is currently drifting out of the Snap Gallery along the swanky Piccadilly Arcade in Mayfair. A boutique exhibition space, Snap sits incongruously amongst purveyors of "... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: René Jacobs InterviewSunday, 05 September 2010
René Jacobs: singer, conductor, scholar, archivist, alchemist, teacher. In recent years he's been "rehabilitating" the Mozart operas for the Harmonia Mundi label, eradicating 19th-century retouchings and stylistic anomalies in order to restore these... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Christophe Rousset InterviewMonday, 05 July 2010
The apartment is shared with a Burmese cat named Hermione and two no less exquisite and venerable harpsichords. In the "library", lavishly bound scores attest to Rousset's archival spirit with his latest pride and joy laid out on the table - the... Read more... |
Semele, Théâtre de Champs-ÉlyséesThursday, 01 July 2010
David McVicar's revival production of Handel's oratorio-cum-opera Semele isn't terribly clever or beautiful or impressive, or fecund with ideas or detail or emotion. But it does work. It does tell the story. And what brings colour to its initially... Read more... |
Opera Italia, BBC FourTuesday, 25 May 2010
The backlash begins here with the first of Flavia Rittner's three documentaries: not an operatic wannabe or a gushing celebrity outsider to present, only a conductor who knows and loves his job inside out and a parade of gorgeous, energetic singers... Read more... |
Glyndebourne announces 2011 operasMonday, 17 May 2010
It used to be a treat saved up for the end of the season, when a Christie of Glyndebourne would step before the curtain and announce the next year's operas. Now, like everyone else, Glyndebourne is jumping in quick with its plans, partly, I guess,... Read more... |
Rolando Villazón, Gabrieli Players, Royal Festival HallMonday, 03 May 2010
Since the passing of Luciano Pavarotti, there’s been a gigantic hole for a tenor of gold-plated opera chops and the gift of communication, and Rolando Villazón - young as he is, at only 38 - already appears to have sealed that gap up effortlessly.... Read more... |
Musical hands across the oceanTuesday, 20 April 2010The American Classical Orchestra is generously offering to lighten the gloom of Europeans trapped by the volcanic cloud in New York (although it's hardly the worst place for an enforced stopover). This Saturday the ACO performs the climactic concert... Read more... |
Mark Morris's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, London ColiseumThursday, 15 April 2010
In 1988 young contemporary choreographer Mark Morris, newly installed in Brussels’ munificent Théâtre de la Monnaie as resident dancemaker to succeed the Emperor of Big, Maurice Béjart, thought not just big but grandly off-beam. Instead of Béjart’s... Read more... |
Tamerlano, Royal OperaFriday, 05 March 2010
Graham Vick's Tamerlano is less of an opera and more of a warning. In four and half hours you see 26 ways of how not to handle the Baroque aria. Dramatic success in Handel and his psychological flights of mainly soliloquising fancy is never easy but... Read more... |
Birthdays on the Tube: 21-27 FebruarySunday, 21 February 2010
This week’s birthday videos include guitarists Andrés Segovia playing a fandango, Japanese heavy metal hero Akira Takasaki and George Harrison. Then there’s Johnny Cash and murdered Afghan singer Nusrat Parsa. It's also the birthday of the mighty... Read more... |
