Royal Opera
Dialogues des Carmélites, Royal OperaFriday, 30 May 2014![]() Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites is a special and very particular opera. There is nothing else quite like it. Just as the drama - set to the composer’s own libretto - teeters between fear and faith, so too does Poulenc’s score, an extraordinary... Read more... |
La Traviata, Royal OperaSunday, 20 April 2014![]() The German soprano Diana Damrau has had the role of Violetta Valéry in La Traviata in her sights for a very long time. As she has explained in interviews, seeing the Zeffirelli film of the opera, with Teresa Stratas in the title role, as a 12-year... Read more... |
L’Ormindo, Royal Opera, Sam Wanamaker PlayhouseWednesday, 26 March 2014![]() The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the new indoor Jacobean theatre at The Globe, is an absolute jewel of painstaking historical research and craftsmanship. It is small, seating around 350, and with its thrust stage lit by around 100 candles (with electric... Read more... |
The Wasp Factory, Linbury Studio TheatreThursday, 03 October 2013![]() A baby's brain is polished off by a throbbing welter of maggots. A field of sheep are on fire. A screaming child whose hands have been tied to a kite is flying out over the North Sea. How do you make an opera out of any of this? The answer of course... Read more... |
Performers: A Season in PhotographsSaturday, 06 July 2013![]() A stage performance in any art form communicates through sound and motion. A photographer's task is to capture the dramatic experience in the silence and stillness of the 2D image. In the worlds of ballet and opera, none does it with more commitment... Read more... |
Simon Boccanegra, Royal OperaFriday, 28 June 2013![]() Revivals are for a conductor to show off some voices he’s discovered, do some role debuts, develop some careers, and as far as the production's concerned pour new wine into old bottles. There was some good new wine in this revival of Elijah... Read more... |
Gloriana, Royal OperaFriday, 21 June 2013![]() Britten’s coronation opera, paying homage less to our own ambiguous queen than to the private-public tapestries of Verdi’s Aida and Don Carlo, is not the rarity publicity would have you believe, at least in its homeland. English National Opera... Read more... |
The Importance of Being Earnest, Linbury Studio TheatreSaturday, 15 June 2013![]() If you were new to contemporary opera, you might think it was forbidden for modern works to be funny. Tragedy is still the default setting for major commissions. You only get serious money if you have serious thoughts and serious music, it seems. At... Read more... |
La donna del lago, Royal OperaSaturday, 18 May 2013![]() I mean, really, what is the point of Rossini? That’s actually not as stupid as it sounds. No-one has ever mistaken any of his operas for taut music-drama, and even the best of them are peculiarly difficult to pull off because without first-rate... Read more... |
Don Carlo, Royal OperaSunday, 05 May 2013![]() An operatic truism still doing the rounds declares that for Verdi's Il trovatore you need four of the greatest singers in the world. For Don Carlo, his biggest opus in every way, you need six. Nicholas Hytner's Covent Garden staging hits the mark... Read more... |
Written on Skin, Royal OperaSaturday, 09 March 2013![]() It’s hard to put one’s finger on why George Benjamin’s new opera doesn’t work. It comes to Covent Garden with a wind in its sails. Its outings in Europe have all received high praise. It boasts a classy cast, Martin Crimp as librettist and Benjamin... Read more... |
The Minotaur, Royal OperaFriday, 18 January 2013![]() Flesh-tearing, woman-raping, body-goring brute he may be, but he's misunderstood, that Minotaur. It's a bold argument to make, but this is the contention of Harrison Birtwistle and David Harsent's 2008 opera. They are aided by a surprisingly... Read more... |
