 Concert Review: The UK premiere of Maciejewski's Missa pro defunctis There is a trend in 20th-century Polish music – dating back to Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater – for giant vocal-orchestral works that very often set religious texts. One thinks of Penderecki's St Luke Passion and Polish Requiem, Górecki's Second Symphony … right up to Pawel Mykietyn's St Mark Passion... more> |
 Opera Review: Lucia di Lammermoor is revived at ENO There are many striking images and ideas in David Alden's production of Lucia di Lammermoor, currently being revived for the first time by English National Opera. Alden views the Lucia-Enrico relationship in an alarming light, with a mixture of paedophilia (in the depiction of Lucia as a young, innocent girl... more> |
 Concert Review: Bryn Terfel in a thrilling Elijah at King's College Cambridge Chapel 'An evening with Bryn Terfel' was the byline for this concert in King's College Chapel, Cambridge on Monday evening and this charismatic artist did not disappoint. To an already eclectic programme he added two favourite Welsh songs, beautifully articulated over slightly... more> |
 Podcast: West End star Maria Friedman talks about her upcoming Great British Songbook CD On 13 April, Maria Friedman will release her first completely new studio album in over a decade. Entitled Maria Friedman Celebrates The Great British Songbook, the CD contains a wide mix of music written by British composers, including everything from Purcell to the... more> |
 Concert Review: Sabine Meyer and her ensemble on fine form in Brussels Bläserensemble Sabine Meyer have developed (in line with their leader) a strong reputation over their twenty year existence for imaginative programming, a reputation which extends backwards in time to neglected works of the past, just as it does outwards to new works of the present.... more> |
 CD Review: Semyon Bychkov's outstanding new Lohengrin In his notes accompanying this superb new recording of Wagner's Lohengrin, conductor Semyon Bychkov shares his personal journey toward the discovery of a new perspective on the character of the scheming, evil Ortrud. Understandably perplexed about how we, as listeners, can feel empathy... more> |
 CD Review: Diana Damrau's COLORaturaS (Virgin) Sooner or later, every successful coloratura soprano with the good fortune of having a recording contract must issue at least one collection of 'chestnuts'. These are the arias known by every aficionado, and thus, recent singers may be easily compared with their predecessors' recorded legacies.
While every selection... more> |
 CD Review: Works by Gösta Neuwirth (Kairos) At the outset of the composer's biography for this new CD, Gösta Neuwirth writes: 'I can with a clear conscience take up Doderer's dictum of having "no biography," but rather "just the… collected deeds of an environment which came
to be more or less by accident," for which the following notes on the "subject" may be sufficient.'... more> |
 Concert Review: Style and sparkle in Schubert's four hand piano music There is a particular charm to the format 'one keyboard, four hands', not least because of the slack each player has to cut to the other: the mere sight of Steven Osborne and Paul Lewis negotiating overlapping hands in the middle area of the Steinway grand keyboard brings a smile... more> |
 DVD Review: Christoph Marthaler's Tristan from Bayeruth (Opus Arte) Following hot on the heels of Christian Thielemann's Ring – released, unusually for Opus Arte, on CD – the company is back in its usual medium for this Tristan und Isolde. Again from Bayreuth, the performance has appeared on DVD with unusual speed, but enters a catalogue already well stocked with filmed versions... more> |
 Interview: Tenor John Tessier stars in ENO's new production of L'elisir d'amore February brings two Donizetti productions to the London Coliseum. English National Opera will present the composer's most famous tragedy and comedy so that audiences can compare them side by side. First comes the return of David Alden's production of Lucia di Lammermoor, and the... more> |
 Book Review: Broadway composer Meredith Willson's two memoirs are republished In 1957, the curtain went up on two of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time. But while Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story grew in popularity and importance as the years rolled by, Meredith Willson's The Music Man never again had quite the impact of... more> |
 Opera Review: Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan tutte returns to Covent Garden The term 'classic production', while it encompasses some of the operatic greats, nevertheless often brings with it a sense of rigidity, of works frozen in a heyday increasingly removed from contemporary sensibilities. Among those directors whose works tend towards the 'classic' Jonathan Miller currently... more> |
 Interview: Soprano Adrianna Pieczonka performs Simon Boccanegra with Domingo at the Met A few days before her debut as Amelia Grimaldi in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, soprano Adrianne Pieczonka agreed to interrupt her pre-performance rest period to talk with me about her background and career as one of the most successful sopranos... more> |
 Opera Review: A stunning Elektra from Brussels The production is set roughly in the forties — the servants wear army uniforms apposite to the period, whilst the opening scene takes place in a locker room used by the serving women — but the period and context are not shoved down the audience's throats. It is rather the complex psychological compulsions... more> |
 News: BBC Music Magazine Announces Public Voting for its 2010 Awards The BBC Music Magazine Awards are now in their fifth year, and they have become firmly established as a reliable benchmark of mainstream classical repertoire assessment. These particular awards are one of the few opportunities the public have to take active part in the deciding of major classical prizes. The... more> |
 Opera Review: The Royal Opera revives The Rake's Progress Although I am familiar with Ninette de Valois' beautiful ballet – her 'Homage to Hogarth' – of the same title, I had not heard The Rake's Progress until the Royal Opera House's current revival (of their July 2008 production). I cannot make comparisons with past stagings of this... more> |
 News: San Francisco Opera announces the 2010-11 Season, including Placido Domingo, Karita Mattila and the complete Ring While in the middle of an exciting season with Nicola Luisotti as new music director, the San Francisco Opera has just announced its 2010-11 season, revealing an equally exciting series of operas and events. Ten productions will be on the War Memorial... more> |
 Concert News: The LSO and the Barbican announce details of their forthcoming seasons Valery Gergiev continues his (generally) acclaimed tour through Russian repertoire with a number of concerts featuring major works by Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, and Rodion Shchedrin. His Mahler cycle continues alike. Highlights include Shchedrin's Carmen Suite and Pianos ... more> |
 Interview: Patricia Bardon on The Rake's Progress at Covent Garden The Irish mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon is, in my opinion, amongst the most special singers on the planet. I've never seen her give anything less than a world-class performance, and she's capable of singing a vast repertoire. Next week, she's back at Covent Garden to reprise the role of Baba the Turk... more> |
 CD Review: Dazzling performances of Handel's 1720 keyboard suites Handel's 1720 Eight Great Suites for keyboard, despite being comparatively neglected in his output, have received many fine and diverse recordings over the years. On piano, Sviatoslav Richter's late-seventies reading of these eclectic and colourful works has long been a ... more> |
 Opera Review: Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna in the Met's Carmen It is often said that we are the sum total of the decisions we make in our lives. Indeed, when Don José sheds his honor, his soul and even his mother for the beguiling gypsy, audiences generally hold him accountable for his poor choices even while dutifully mindful of the nature and power of his addiction... more> |
 Opera Review: Renee Fleming and Susan Graham in the Met's Rosenkavalier 'What a drag it is getting old,' reads the opening line of The Rolling Stones' 1965 hit, Mother's Little Helper – a sentiment echoed, with greater subtlety perhaps, by the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. But Saturday's Metropolitan Opera performance of the Strauss masterpiece – led by a handsome pair of singer... more> |
 News: Thielemann's Elektra in Baden-Baden In its Winter Festival (29 January to 7 February) the Festspielhaus of Baden-Baden presents a revised production of the late Herbert Wernicke's ELEKTRA under Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic. Katarina Dalayman was to sing Elektra but she was taken ill, and this
gave Linda Watson the opportunity to make her... more> |
 Concert Review: Borodin Quartet perform in London The most compelling attributes of the Borodin Quartet are their homogeneity as an ensemble and their pure, gimmick-free playing. Showmanship has no part in their performance or, indeed, in any part of their appearance on stage. There is no victory march to and from the stage, their concert attire does not... more> |
 Concert Review: Orchestral fireworks from Jurowski and the LPO Shostakovich 4 is a relative rarity in the concert hall. Scored for an enormous orchestra, formally more like a symphonic fantasy than a conventional symphony, bursting with more melodic themes and changes of mood than its structure can really handle, it is nevertheless an incredibly welcome and invigorating... more> |
 CD Review: Yannick Nézet-Séguin tackles Bruckner's Eighth (Atma) Yannick Nézet-Séguin is arguably the most up-and-coming conductor in the classical music world as we enter 2010. As well as being in his second season as both Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Principal Guest Conductor of the LPO, the young French-Canadian maestro continues... more> |
 Feature: West Side Story Documented: Professor Nigel Simeone on his new book Why write a book on West Side Story? For me, this question answered itself while I was on a research trip to Washington DC a few years ago – during a blisteringly hot August – when I was able to look at the West Side Story manuscripts in the Leonard Bernstein Collection at the Library of Congress... more> |
 CD Reviews: A selection of recent vocal releases Just as the economy's at an all-time low, the classical music record business is at its most productive in a long time. Not a week goes by without another one dropping through my letterbox, and the range of repertoire, artists and styles is encouraging. Space and time don't permit for fuller reviews of some of these items, so this article... more> |
 CD Review: Vivaldi Pyrotechnics from Vivica Genaux (Virgin) Firmly established as a specialist in Baroque music, Vivica Genaux has repeatedly stunned her listeners with jaw-dropping renditions of the most hair-raisingly difficult coloratura music. Though she has spent a good deal of time on stage impersonating Rossini's comic heroines, Genaux clearly... more> |
 Book Review: Kurtág Interviews and texts on Ligeti Bálint András Varga is a former head of promotion for Universal Edition and a figure who has to his name a long engagement with contemporary music. His previous books include interviews with Xenakis and Lutoslawski – with both of whom, as with Kurtag, he has had close ties – and on the dust jacket of this new volume on Kurtag... more> |
 CD Review: Philippe Jaroussky sings J.C. Bach (Virgin) There has been a strong resurgence in the popularity of Handel's operas over the last ten years, complete with textual editions and period performance practices informed by the solid scholarship that results from research into the primary sources. We are able to hear music from the seventeenth and eighteenth... more> |
| Concert Review: Borodin Quartet perform in London The most compelling attributes of the Borodin Quartet are their homogeneity as an ensemble and their pure, gimmick-free playing. Showmanship has no part in their performance or, indeed, in any part of their appearance on stage. There is no victory march to and from the stage, their concert attire does not... more> |
 Opera Interview: Joyce DiDonato on her Baden-Baden New Year gala and future plans Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has just finished a series of performances as Rosina in Rossini's ever-popular Il barbiere di Siviglia in Los Angeles. It has been quite an amazing year for the charismatic American star. Currently riding a tidal wave of plaudits for her most recent... more> |
 Feature: Concerts Review of 2009 - the highlights of the past twelve months Despite
the ongoing global financial crisis, the past year has seen a strong
showing from all of London's major concert halls, with the
resurgent LPO, Philharmonia and BBC SO having
particularly strong years. Smaller and newer venues such as Café
Oto, the Warehouse... more> |
 New Year's Preview: Classical music highlights in North America Where to start picking the 2010 highlights of the North American musical world? It's truly a challenging task – but interesting and entertaining too. It's difficult to imagine a most exciting month than January in New York. For opera lovers, the Metropolitan Opera is definitely the place to be. Renée Fleming will return for... more> |
 Concert News: Simon Rattle looks to new directions in London and Baden-Baden When some months ago the entire future of the Easter Festival by the Berlin Philharmonic, traditionally held in Salzburg, was for technical reasons in jeopardy, Sir Simon Rattle and the Management of the orchestra approached Dr. Andreas Molich-Zebhauser, Intendant of the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden... more> |
 Feature: Opera Review of 2009 - the ups and downs of the past twelve months The financial crisis has dominated every aspect of life in 2009, and the opera world is no exception. Slashed budgets have led to the cancellation of new productions and even the closure of several opera companies in America; touring companies have reduced their number of performances... more> |
