Wagner
Theorin, Hallé, Stenz, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterFriday, 19 October 2012
It is considerate of Manchester’s two professional symphony orchestras to have organised their opening Wagner celebration salvoes so that they dovetail so neatly. The BBC Philharmonic opened their season three weeks ago with the Wesendonck Lieder,... Read more... |
Hahn, BBC Philharmonic, Mena, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterMonday, 01 October 2012
Wagner was not averse to highlights being plucked from the mighty Ring, even though it is an all-encompassing drive-through drama. Perhaps it’s as well, since the bicentenary celebrations of his birth are getting up steam and concert planners are at... Read more... |
Götterdämmerung, Longborough FestivalWednesday, 18 July 2012
Every production of Wagner’s Ring is a challenge. But to stage it in a smallish converted barn seating 500 with little or no stage machinery, which is what the Longborough Festival plans to do in a year’s time, might strike one as a particularly... Read more... |
Die Walküre, Opera NorthSunday, 17 June 2012
This works as well as it did last year – a no-frills approach to Wagner that helps far more than it hinders. Forget fat ladies wearing Viking helmets. Here the intimacy, the surprising humanity of Die Walküre come to the fore in what seems more and... Read more... |
Tristan und Isolde, Welsh National OperaSunday, 20 May 2012
Welsh National Opera has a good track record with Wagner. Its Meistersinger of two summers ago is already the stuff of legend (and alas not likely to return to reality); farther back one recalls a more than respectable Parsifal, a notable Ring cycle... Read more... |
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2012-13 seasonTuesday, 01 May 2012Chief Conductor Vasily Petrenko commences his seventh season, exploring the music of Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes. The soloists roll call includes Simon Trpčeski, Tasmin Little, Tine Thing Helseth, Daniel Müller-Schott. Liverpool... Read more... |
The Flying Dutchman, English National OperaSunday, 29 April 2012
Obsession and redemption, the twin themes of Wagner's ghostly earliest masterpiece, are two words that could just as pertinently be applied to Jonathan Kent's new production for English National Opera. Obsession is how many non-diehard Wagner opera-... Read more... |
Parsifal, Mariinsky Opera/Gergiev, Wales Millennium CentreSunday, 01 April 2012
Is it my imagination, or are we getting more Wagner in concert than we used to? It could be a welcome development. How marvellous not to have to tremble at the thought of the latest flight of directorial fantasy: Isolde pregnant, Siegfried as an... Read more... |
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, 2012-13 SeasonThursday, 22 March 2012The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) has announced its 2012-13 season. Donald Runnicles opens his fourth season as chief conductor with the first act of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, launching the orchestra... Read more... |
Regional Opera, 2012 SeasonThursday, 12 January 2012
Popular operatic love stories by Puccini, Wagner and Mozart dominate the regional scene in 2012, but key talents like producer Tim Albery in Leeds, Lothar Koenigs in Cardiff and David McVicar in Glasgow all promise significant stage experiences.... Read more... |
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Royal OperaTuesday, 20 December 2011
A young chap from Elsewhere woos an alderman's daughter: not Dick Whittington in panto London, but Wagner's Walther von Stolzing in an unseasonal Nuremberg. No one is going to mind the solstitial disjunction - celebrating midsummer revels in the... Read more... |
Der Fliegende Holländer, Royal OperaWednesday, 19 October 2011
Whether or not we believe Wagner’s retrospective rebranding of the opera as a prototype music-drama, “a complete, unbroken web”, Der Fliegende Holländer reliably makes for a vivid evening’s entertainment. Which makes it all the more strange that... Read more... |
