Opera review: An unmissable Quartett at the Linbury Studio at ROHAfter opening with Ben Frost's critically mauled adaptation of Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory, the ROH brings its 2013/14 season of operas in the Linbury Theatre to a triumphant close. Luca Francesconi's Quartett is a triumph, an intricately crafted work whichmore> |
Opera review: A triumphant Ariadne auf Naxos at the Royal Opera House Christof Loy’s 2002 production, as well as its current revival, is imaginative, tasteful and highly entertaining. Loy’s interpretation of both plots (those of the Prologue and the opera) and his characterisation of the roles are fully in accord with Hofmannstahl’s witty libretto and Strauss’s splendid score. There is not a single movement on stage which does not correspond to the music; the choreographic direction...more> |
Opera review: Peter Grimes at Grange ParkPeter Grimes is not the first Britten opera to have been scheduled by Grange Park—that honour goes to The Turn of the Screw, which made its appearance in 2002. But Peter Grimes is the first grand opera by Britten, with full orchestra and chorus, to have filled Grange Park's comparatively small theatrical space (around 550 seats) with its astonishingly...more> |
Opera review: Vert Vert at GarsingtonThe theme of a gauche adolescent boy, who is taken in charge by a glamorous older woman, tutored in the arts of love, before then finding a suitable girl of his own age and circumstances to marry, is a favourite on the opera and operetta stage. Offenbach's 1869 Vert Vert, written not for his own beloved Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens but for the slightly more...more> |
Opera review: An outstanding Benvenuto Cellini at ENOSome modern productions have difficulty trusting the work they are trying to present. Usually, the distrust stems from the director's lack of understanding about the work or the "modern spin" they attempt to impose on it in an attempt to make it more relevant. Such was the case with Terry Gilliam's production of La damnation de Faust , his first outing into operatic directing about four years ago. As I recall...more> |
Opera review: A vintage Eugene Onegin at GlyndebourneTwenty years ago director Graham Vick caused a minor sensation with his ground-breaking new production of Eugene Onegin in the brand new Glyndebourne Opera House. Vick gave us bare, sometimes bleak stage vistas, bathed in pastel colours, interspersed with sudden bursts of interior warmth--notably in the...more> |
Opera review: a different take on Cosi at ENO English National Opera's successful and highly entertaining production of Cosi Fan Tutte raises again the question — as ENO's production of Rodelinda did a few months ago...more> |
Opera review: a four-star Rosenkavalier at GlyndebourneDer Rosenkavalier is a favourite opera for many people, and for many different reasons. Some love the moments of pathos--the glimpses of personal suffering behind the social...more> |
Opera review: Peter Grimes at Grange ParkPeter Grimes is not the first Britten opera to have been scheduled by Grange Park—that honour goes to The Turn of the Screw, which made its appearance in 2002. But Peter Grimes is the first grand opera by Britten, with full orchestra and chorus, to have filled Grange Park's comparatively small theatrical space (around 550 seats) with its astonishingly...more> |
CD Feature: Welcome first CD issues of Cowardy Custard, A Little Night Music film soundtrack and TV versions of Brigadoon and Kiss Me, Kate The musical heritage of the “Great American Songbook” and the Hollywood and Broadway musical is one of America’s artistic treasures. Yet with the fast-changing and troubled face of the contemporary recording industry, much of this great music is left forgotten or undiscovered....more> |
Opera review: a new Cosi at ENO While we've had Figaro in a car showroom and Don Giovanni in Spanish Harlem, the last of Mozart's Da Ponte operas has proved more resistant to such updatings and transpositions; and even when they have been attempted...more> |
Opera Review: A disappointing Figaro at the Royal Opera HouseI like my Mozart the way I like my darts: precise. There are undoubtedly some operas in which the singers and conductor can get away with being ever-so-slightly sloppy; you know, the way a poorly filled Sloppy-Joe might be at a mediocre American diner. Le nozze di Figaro is decidedly not one of those operas. The masterpiece myth aside, in order for Figaro to work in performance there must be clarity of rhythm, robustness of sound, and above all...more> |
Opera review: Vert Vert at GarsingtonThe theme of a gauche adolescent boy, who is taken in charge by a glamorous older woman, tutored in the arts of love, before then finding a suitable girl of his own age and circumstances to marry, is a favourite on the opera and operetta stage. Offenbach's 1869 Vert Vert, written not for his own beloved Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens but for the slightly more...more> |
Opera Review: A welcome return to Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden The 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth is marked and celebrated by the Royal Opera with a new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow). Strauss completed the opera during World War I, and it received its premiere in 1919. This new production...more> |
Opera Review: A dazzling Rodelinda from English National Opera The recent, highly successful run of Handel's Rodelinda at the English National Opera seemed to have two opposing forces at play which, nevertheless, blended into a very enjoyable experience. On one hand we had Handel's serious opera; on the other hand, the theatrical experience was not only entertaining but often comic...more> |
Concert Review: Sigiswald Kuijken and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment The publicity surrounding Sigiswald Kuijken’s introduction of the violoncello da spalla (shoulder cello) to London audiences was impressive. For instance, Kuijken’s appearance on BBC 2’s ‘Newsnight’ programme and an Evening Standard article drew considerable attention...more> |
Opera Review: A well sung but tired Fille at ROH This production of Donizetti's opera comique is as uninspired as Pelly's previous outings at the Royal Opera recently: a mishmash of World War II costumes with dark brown and tan maps that occasionally swing across the stage and date from (one assumes) the 1840s. The closest we get to realism is a cleverly tilted set that acts as la maison de Berkenfeld...more> |
Opera Review: A starry revival of Manon at Covent Garden The table has a special place in western cultural practice. It is a place to perform one of life's critical functions as well as trivial ones; to entertain friends and family; to remember. In modern times its relevance as a bond holding people together is slowly lessening, but as an cultural image...more> |
Opera Review: An outstanding Rigoletto at ENOVerdi's Rigoletto is arguably all about a curse. Before it became the opera we know today, its working title for several months was in fact la maledizione (the curse). The curse as a motif replays for the duration of the opera musically: Rigoletto sings the same words over the same music five separate times to convey the importance Monterone's curse and it is of course, the curse that literally...more> |
Opera Review: A rare outing for Alfano's Sakuntala in New York The relatively lucky few New Yorkers who are "in the know" about Teatro Grattacielo's existence eagerly anticipate their annual one-off concert performance of a rare verismo or post-verismo Italian opera. Last October's thrilling revival of Montemezzi's 1918 La Nave (its first since 1938) set the bar high for this resurrection of Franco Alfano's 1921 Sakùntala...more> |
Opera Review: A brand new Carmen for Royal Opera In the programme for Bizet's Carmen, Kasper Holten remarks that the title character is a mysterious figure, and that "we can never really know who she is". This seemed ironic: even at the end of the opera, I was not left with a clear idea...more> |
Opera Review: A brand new Magic Flute for English National Opera First and foremost, English National Opera’s new production of The Magic Flute is an extra-ordinary theatrical event. Regular theatre goers might already have seen at least some of the technical...more> |
Opera Review: A disappointing new Die Fledermaus at ENO The Coliseum curtain was already up; a large and luxurious bed to one side of the vast, empty stage, a giant pocket watch suspended ominously over the other. The overture began and Rosalinde was revealed, alone in bed, writhing about in the throes...more> |
Concert Review: Sophie Bevan and friends perform Goethe Lieder at the Oxford Lieder Festival This concert marked a milestone event: the end of a three year undertaking to record the first complete set of Hugo Wolf’s songs (including twenty-two premiere recordings). The project was brought to a close with the Festival’s third and final instalment of the composer’s Goethe-Lieder (performed over the space of five days). Many of the final...more> |
Opera Review: A starry revival of Wozzeck at Covent Garden It’s not hard to imagine Berg being captivated by Georg Buchner’s Woyzeck when he saw one of its first performances in Vienna in 1914; written in 1836, and left unfinished at its author’s premature death, it’s a play out of time, a bizarre, fragmentary artefact that meshed so perfectly with the modernist aesthetic...more> |
Opera Review: The beloved English National Opera Production of Madam Butterfly returns Now in its fifth revival at ENO, Anthony Minghella's production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly seems only to get stronger as time passes. It is certainly one of the best things ENO does, and its strength rests not only in its spectacular beauty...more> |
Opera Review: Beethoven's Fidelio at ENO Six years ago, in 2007, we interviewed a promising young South African baritone called Jacques Imbrailo and chatted to him about his forthcoming appearance in Britten’s Owen Wingrave at the Linbury in the ROH...more> |
Opera Review: Le nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro is exceedingly difficult to perform well. The opera is unlike any other: short and snappy arias, recitatives packed with information and witticisms, and music that at moments reaches right into the soul of the listener and, just as often, deep into the belly to provoke raucous laughter. It is not without its flaws but nevertheless it...more> |
Opera Review: The ROH's revival of Elektra After a low-octane Turandot (Lise Lindstrom’s titular performance aside) to open the season, it was nice to return to Covent Garden and find that the emotional temperature considerably raised. Richard Strauss’s first collaboration with his star librettist Hugo von Hofmannstahl remains one of the most searing operatic works of the 20th century, and on a...more> |
Opera Review: The Royal Opera's season opens with Turandot The Royal Opera began its new season with Andrei Serban‘s seasoned production of Puccini’s Turandot. With epic sets designed by Sally Jacobs and lighting by F. Mitchell Dana, the traditional yet highly stylized production perfectly evokes a China long since dead whilst also perfectly complementing...more> |
Opera Review: Opera Holland Park's new production of L'elisir d'amore Opera buffa doesn’t get good PR. Amongst scholars, the genre is often overshadowed by the grandiose or serious (read: academically legitimate) themes so well communicated by its looming cousin opera seria--even after a renewed interest in some of the... more> |
Concert Review: Music in Szentbakkalla, Hungary Surrounded by the low but beautiful scenic mountains of the Balaton-Highland, Szentbékkálla is a picturesque village in Káli-basin, Hungary. The entire population of the village consists of two hundred residents although visitors seeking a peaceful rest or scenic mountain-walks swell...more> |
Opera Review: Glyndebourne's Hippolyte et Aricie It has taken Rameau’s five act opera Hippolyte et Aricie a mere 280 years to travel from Paris to its first production at Glyndebourne: was it worth the wait? Well, not only was this the first Hippolyte at Glyndebourne, it was the first ever... more> |
Opera Review: Garsington Opera's Hansel and Gretel The more I experience opera in the new steel and glass pavilion built for Garsington Opera at Wormsley, the more I like it. The space is vaguely reminiscent of the old structure in the grounds of Garsington Manor, but the acoustics are better, the sight lines generous... more> |
Opera Review: Grange Parks's production of Messanger's Fortunio ull marks and four stars to Grange Park Opera for rounding off their 2013 season with a delightful French operetta of 1907 – the slight, elegant, cynical tale of an aristocratic French lady Jaqueline who sleeps not with her husband, the elderly notary Maitre Andre, but with first one lover, the... more> |
Opera Review: The Royal Opera's La rondine One of the great tragedies of Puccini’s music is that, for much of its lifetime, it has been measured with a Germanic yardstick, often being reduced to suffer humiliation at the hands of Wagner’s most devoted followers—those who listen for cold, emotionless nuances. Of course, in academia it’s not quite as overtly bleak... more> |
CD Review: Sony releases Bye Bye Birdie, Seventeen, Kinky Boots, Chaplin and many others Broadway musicals don’t come more charming than Seventeen. Musical theatre in 1951 had much more challenging fare on offer, including Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I and Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls, as well as zippy shows like Irving Berlin’s Call Me Madam and the satirical Jule Styne revue Two on the Aisle, so it’s understandable that in such a context this chocolate-box musical comedy... more> |
Opera Review: Thomas Hampson in the Royal Opera's Simon Boccanegra Written after his not-so-successful first attempt at grand opera Les vêpes siciliennes, Simon Boccanegra still reflects Verdi’s two years in Paris and is one of his darkest operas, with musical characteristics common to the city’s grandest form of art: orchestral colors that have deep hues, long flowing melodic lines... more> |
Opera Interview: Baritone Jacques Imbrailo chats about Glyndebourne's Billy Budd and future plans Six years ago, in 2007, we interviewed a promising young South African baritone called Jacques Imbrailo and chatted to him about his forthcoming appearance in Britten’s Owen Wingrave at the Linbury in the ROH...more> |
Opera Review: The Royal Opera's season opens with Turandot The Royal Opera began its new season with Andrei Serban‘s seasoned production of Puccini’s Turandot. With epic sets designed by Sally Jacobs and lighting by F. Mitchell Dana, the traditional yet highly stylized production perfectly evokes a China long since dead whilst also perfectly complementing...more> |
Opera Review: Opera Holland Park's new production of L'elisir d'amore Opera buffa doesn’t get good PR. Amongst scholars, the genre is often overshadowed by the grandiose or serious (read: academically legitimate) themes so well communicated by its looming cousin opera seria--even after a renewed interest in some of the... more> |
Opera Review: Wolf-Ferrari's I gioielli della Madonna at Opera Holland Park Opera Holland Park have carved out a valuable niche in reviving neglected examples of late-19th/early-20th century Italian repertoire; recent years have seen welcome stagings of, for example, Zandonai’s oddly beguiling Francesca di Rimini, Mascagni’s hugely likeable... more> |
Concert Review: Versatile Britten brings the Aldeburgh Festival to an end The five performances of Peter Grimes at the heart of this year’s Aldeburgh Festival (two in concert, three on the beach) may have overshadowed some of the other musical offerings, but Britten’s versatility as a composer was illustrated in different ways as the Festival drew to a close. Of huge interest was an evening called Britten Dances, given by the Royal...more> |
Opera Interview: Soprano Ailyn Perez chats about Glyndebourne's Falstaff One of the undoubted highlights of the 2013 Glyndebourne season is the joyful revival of the Richard Jones production of Falstaff that first saw the light of day in 2009. And one of the undoubted highlights in that revival is the triumphant assertion of the role of Alice Ford by Glyndebourne debutante Ailyn Pérez. Four weeks into the run, we caught up with the young, prizewinning soprano between ...more> |
Opera
Review: A welcome revival of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers at Opera
Holland Park Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles is not an opera that
usually adapts well when staged by smaller opera companies. Topically
it is in the same camp as Halévy’s Jaguarita L’Indienne for the primacy
of dramatic impetus given to the female role but also for what are
termed its “literary” qualities: a substantial focus on historical or
geographical exploration coupled with...more> |
Opera
Review: Peter Grimes on the beach at the Aldeburgh Festival
No production of Peter Grimes can ever have started with two low-flying
passes over stage setting and audience by a Spitfire, but that is what
happened at 20.32 on the opening night (of three) of this year's major
event at the Aldeburgh Festival--Grimes on the Beach. "Glastonbury
comes to Aldeburgh" was one of the muttered comments that greeted me,
and the speaker had a point: on a cold, blustery June evening, in the
teeth of a north easterly wind, with the sea crashing on the shingle...more> |
Opera
Review: Britten's Death in Venice at ENO Benjamin Britten's
centenary year is celebrated with an outstanding production of Death in
Venice by the English National Opera. The high quality event, ENO's
revival of Deborah Warner's 2007 production, serves not only as a
worthy tribute to Britten...more> |
Opera
Review: Opera Holland Park presents Madama Butterfly There
is a gentle breeze, with only the slightest chill, as the warm sun sets
whilst Puccini's "Vogliatemi bene" hits with full force those enjoying
one of Opera Holland Park's new productions. This one is, of course,
Madama Butterfly, and..more> |
Opera
Review: Britten's Peter Grimes at the Aldeburgh Festival It
is 13 years since the Snape Maltings Concert Hall last resounded to a
full-scale, semi-staged concert performance of Peter Grimes. And now,
as then, it seemed on occasion during the second performance of the
opera as the big opener for the 2013 Aldeburgh Festival that the storm
music conjured up...more> |
Opera
Review: Garsington Opera presents Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem
Serai The 2013 Garsington Opera season opened its third year at
its new home on the Wormsley Estate with a propitious omen: for once,
the weather was balmy and the beautiful steel and glass structure that
encloses the performance space was..more> |
Opera
Review: The Royal Opera stages a new production of Britten's Gloriana
A cursory glance at the programme inset gives one brief pause for
thought: on Monday 24 June 2013 (a performance that was relayed live to
cinemas all over the UK) the Royal Opera gave their 16th performance of
Gloriana. Sixteen performances in sixty years – hardly a runaway box
office success. And the more I watched the quirky, stylish but...more> |
Opera
Review: Garsington Opera presents Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem
Serai The 2013 Garsington Opera season opened its third year at
its new home on the Wormsley Estate with a propitious omen: for once,
the weather was balmy and the beautiful steel and glass structure that
encloses the performance space was..more> |
Concerts
Review: The Monteverdi Choir under Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the
Aldeburgh Festival For his first appearance at this year’s
Aldeburgh Festival, John Eliot Gardiner chose a well-balanced programme
of choral and instrumental music by Bach to showcase the talents of his
choir and of two fine violinists with whom he has long made music –
Kati Debretzeni played the A minor concerto in the first half...more> |
Opera
Review: English National Opera premieres The Perfect American
Philip Glass and Rudy Wurlitzer's The Perfect American, which uses the
last few months of Walt Disney's life as a lens to explore Disney's
personal character and wider themes related to wider American culture,
doesn't really work as an opera, at least for much of its running time.
Based on Peter Stephan Jungk's eponymous book and produced by
Improbable in collaboration...more> |
Opera
Review: OHP presents Cav and Pag Opera Holland Park
opened its 2013 season with Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and
Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, presented as a traditional double-bill. Both
are new productions for a company that in the past has proven itself as
an innovative, stylish, and resourceful producer of opera...more> |
Interview:
Joshua Hopkins about Glyndebourne's revival of Le nozze di Figaro
For the 2013 revival of director Michael Grandage's Le Nozze di Figaro
at Glyndebourne (running from 8 June to 2 August), the role of Count
Almaviva--one of opera's great comic/dramatic baritone roles--has gone
to young Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins...more> |
Opera
Review: Verdi's Falstaff returns to Glyndebourne When
Glyndebourne asked Richard Jones to direct a new Falstaff for the
Festival four years ago, they must have hoped he would come up with a
production worth reviving. And four years later, that is precisely what
they have done, in this Verdi anniversary year. I reviewed the original
production, which I loved, and described it as a Falstaff that looked
wonderful, played absolutely naturally and dazzled musically. If I
withhold half a star on this occasion – the opening night... more> |
Opera
Review: Glyndebourne presents Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos
For their first new production of a Richard Strauss opera since the
house was rebuilt in 1994, Glyndebourne - or more specifically,
Glyndebourne's outgoing musical director Vladimir Jurowski - chose to
open the 2013 season by mounting the 1916 version of the perennially
fascinating...more> |
Opera
Preview: Garsington Opera Preview 2013 There were those who
wondered how long Garsington Opera would be able to continue and to
survive when it finally had to depart Garsington Manor, a few years
after the death of Garsington founder Leonard Ingrams in 2005, but they
reckoned without the extraordinary loyalty – and fund-raising ability –
of a core...more> |
Opera
Preview: Wasfi Kani in Conversation and Grange Park Opera's 2013 Season
Anniversaries are in the air this year, with worldwide exposure of the
greater (and lesser) operatic works of Britten, Verdi and Wagner
everywhere, but at the Grange in Northington, a few miles north of
Winchester where Grange Park Opera is preparing for its 16th annual
opera festival...more> |
Opera
Interview: Lianna Haroutounian on the Royal Opera's Don Carlo
Haroutounian prefers the five-act version of Don Carlo in Italian, but
for an insightful dramatic reason: “The audience gets the complete
experience of her story if there are five acts. In Fontainebleau, we
see Elisabetta as a young, happy, brave girl; her main question in life
is ‘will the prince love me?’ In an instant, she goes from this
youthful euphoria, a representation of young love, to resignation as
she embraces the gravity of her [public] role, her fate. The five-act
version reveals the contrast between...more> |
CD
Review: Sony rereleases Classical Barbra with bonus tracks
February 2013 saw the release of the newly remastered edition of
Classical Barbra, a major cross-over album by pop star Barbra
Streisand, including two previously unreleased tracks. Originally
released in 1976, the album's production began three years earlier with
Claus Ogerman at the helm in the roles of producer, arranger... more> |
Opera
Review: Puccini's La bohème returns to ENO One of the
greatest strengths of Puccini’s La bohème is its sentimentality. But
this is no run-of-the-mill sentimental sap, this is
twilight-of-the-nineteenth-century-Italian sap, which means that those
feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia are exacerbated not only
by the self-indulgence typical of “feeling... more> |
Opera
Review: The Royal Opera honours Sir Colin Davis with The Magic Flute
“Perchance to dream…” Hamlet’s soliloquy is difficult to forget whilst
sitting through David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte;
not for its metaphorical fluidity but rather for its literal
connotations: the production is like a dream, but one that continually
vacillates between joy and nightmare as the opera progresses. Is this
too gratuitous? For once, there is...more> |
Opera
Review: A new Nabucco for Covent Garden in the Verdi
bicentenary year What does Nabucco mean for the modern subject?
Depending on the production, it’s safe to say that one of three major
themes will be highlighted. In the near ubiquitous presence of the
chorus, one finds the plight of exile in the face of extreme hardship
or political brutality; a struggle for power and loyalty as illustrated
by... more> |
Opera
Review: Written on Skin at the Royal Opera House In a 2010
article, the composer Christopher Fox suggested that successful models
for the composition of opera--for the operatic marriage of drama, words
and music--'grew out of a radical re-thinking of theatrical convention;
new subjects demanded new dramatic modes'. In other words, in answer to
the common... more> |
Opera
Review: Roberto Alagna features in Madama Butterfly at the Liceu
Having seen productions of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly that
often verge on the overtly political, it was refreshing to see the Leiser
and Caurier production at the Gran Teatre del Liceu
in Barcelona, which essentially focuses on and fleshes out the dramatic
tension inherent in the dénouement of the opera... more> |
Opera
Review: Medea at ENO Operatically speaking, the myth of the
wronged woman and child murderess Medea has largely been filtered
through Cherubini’s dramatic 1797 setting, especially since Maria
Callas’s celebrated assumption of the role (not to mention her amazing,
non-singing... more> |
Opera
Review: Rossini's The Barber of Seville returns to ENO Is
Rossini’s Barber of Seville the quintessential opera buffa? In terms of
its musical structure, plot (old man battles young, aristocratic fop
over pretty rich girl and loses), and witty dénouement, perhaps. But
“quitessential,” like “definitive,” always raises eyebrows these
days... more> |
Opera
Review: Puccini's Tosca returns to Covent Garden In his
magnum opus, À la recherche du temps perdu, Marcel Proust wrote that
sadism is at the root of all melodrama. Although he was likely
contemplating operatic tradition generally, was there a particular
melodrama living in his memory as exemplar? Perhaps not, but his maxim
aptly applies to one of the greatest melodramas of all... more> |
Concert
Review: Joyce DiDonato at the Barbican Joyce DiDonato is an
international phenomenon. It is a status that owes much to an
incredibly successful year. DiDonato won a Grammy in 2012; sped on in
the early part of 2013 to a series of deeply committed performances of
the rare Maria Stuarda at the Met; and recently embarked on a European
tour compulsory after an international opera star records an album. The
marketing department at Virgin Classics must... more> |
Opera
Review: Rigoletto Live from the Met There is an intriguing
serendipity between the sharp dramatic irony of Verdi’s Rigoletto and
Michael Mayer’s new, operatic debut production at the Met. Mayer’s
transposition to 1960s Las Vegas, whilst not wholly original (Jonathan
Miller did something similar at ENO in ... more> |
Concert
Review: The King's Singers perform religious a cappella music and and
pop songs in Ann Arbor While many young University of Michigan
couples spent their Valentine’s evening on dinner dates, nearly one
thousand Ann Arborites found themselves at a rather unexpected venue on
such an amorous holiday — a church sanctuary. Perhaps returning to the
holy origins of Saint Valentine’s Day... more> |
Reviews:
Eugene Onegin at Covent Garden and La traviata at
ENO "Triumph" and "Failure" are strong words to describe the impact
of an opera performance. Both are bold and unambiguous; they leave
little doubt about what "really happened" that night. Imaginations
might easily run wild. But there is a problem in using words like
these, adjectives that... more> |
Opera
Review: The Met's's Maria Stuarda comes to the UK on the big
screen Maria Stuarda had trouble getting off the ground between
1834-35, the period it had its two premiers in Naples and Milan
respectively. In pre-unified Italy, depicting royalty
on-stage--especially royals who even by today's standards insult each
other... more> |
Opera
Review: Birtwistle's The Minotaur returns to Covent Garden
The Minotaur premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2008 and here, for
its first revival over four years later, the three central singers made
welcome returns to their respective roles. Pride of place must go to
Sir John Tomlinson, who produced an astonishing singing... more> |
Interview:
Nicola Luisotti in conversation about his appointment as the new music
director of the historic Teatro di San Carlo of Naples 'How do you
say excited in Italian?' That is a question that came up
during my conversation with maestro Nicola Luisotti. When speaking a
language different than English, it is always difficult to find a term
that implies what this one does – an emotional state, a high-level of
energy... more> |
Opera
Review: Opera North's new production of Verdi's Otello
Verdi’s lifelong project to reconcile the extremes of the national and
the personal, the grand and the intimate, come to a head in his
penultimate opera, Otello. His well-known passion for Shakespeare
cannot have been the only motivation for his decision to return to
composition with this piece: the internal tensions surrounding... more> |
CD
Review Roundup: Sony's Masterworks Broadway series features A
Christmas Story, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and more
Two brand new studio recordings and three varied reissues highlight the
full-on dedication of Sony's Masterworks Broadway wing to the
preservation of musical theatre. Spanning over sixty years of
recordings... more> |
CD
Review Roundup: The new Broadway Records label offers Wildhorn, Osnes
and Jonas Broadway Records is an exciting new record label with
great potential. Launched last summer, the label is devoted to musical
theatre repertoire and comprises cast albums from Broadway and
Off-Broadway, new studio recordings and single-artist albums. In
contrast to Sony's Masterworks Broadway... more>
|
Opera
Review: The Royal Opera unveils a new production of Meyerbeer's Robert
le diable When it premiered in 1831, Robert le diable was the
world's first blockbuster; within five years of its first performance,
Robert had already been mounted at the Paris Opera over 100 times and
had traveled to London, Brussels, Berlin... more> |
Opera
Review: American Symphony Orchestra's concert performance of Bellini's Beatrice
di Tenda For many years, the excellent Collegiate Chorale and
their frequent collaborators, the American Symphony Orchestra, have
done admirable work in performing operatic rarities that would not
otherwise be heard in New York City. Operaphiles wait eagerly for
their annual offerings, and this year... more> |
Opera
Review: ENO revives Jonathan Miller's classic production of The
Mikado The latest revival of Jonathan Miller's
production of The Mikado for the English National
Opera feels as fresh now as on its first outing over
twenty-six years ago. This is a timeless production which could
continue to delight audiences for years or, indeed, for decades to
come.... more> |
Opera
Review: Montemezzi's La Nave receives a rare outing Fortune
has been unkind to the opera Italo Montemezzi considered his
masterpiece, the 1918 epic La Nave. At its successful prima in Milan,
where Tullio Serafin conducted, critics gushed over it and audiences
identified strongly with its nationalist... more> |
Opera
Review: A new Carmen from ENO There is no other opera in
the canon--even one of Verdi's--that is quite as embedded in the
collective imagination of Western culture as Bizet's Carmen. Everyone
knows the habanera and Escamillo's anthem, and the idea of a femme
fatale is still rehashed today in television and film. Much can be said
(and much has been said).... more> |
Opera
Review: Vaughan Williams's The Pilgrim's Progress revived by
English National Opera From the grave hymn tune with which it opens
to the final radiant fade-out with which it concludes nearly two and a
half hours later, Vaughan Williams' final stage work, more oratorio
than opera, remains a problematic piece, offering contemporary
audiences a Marmite-like... more>
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Opera
interview: Ruxandra Donose discusses English National Opera's new Carmen
Although she looks unassuming enough, Ruxandra Donose exudes a certain
air that screams passion. Perhaps it is her fierce Romanian heritage or
her well-spoken demeanor that shines through most intensely... more> |
Opera
Review: Live telecast of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito from the
Met The Roman Emperor Titus was by all accounts a forgiving
man. At least when compared to the likes of Caligula, Nero and
Commodus. But even Titus (or Tito, as he’s known in this opera)
would have been hard-pressed to find anything in need of a pardon at
the Met’s handsomely... more> |
Opera
Review: Live telecast of Adès' The Tempest from the Met
In a 1963 episode of the expressionist television series The
Twilight Zone, a desperate screenwriter uses black magic to summon
Shakespeare to the present. The Met's new production of Thomas
Adès's The Tempest, broadcast live from Lincoln Center last
Saturday, brings the Bard and expressionism together once again — only
the "dark arts".... more> |
Concert
Review: The Mariinsky Orchestra, Gergiev and Matsuev perform in Ann
Arbor Exactly two years ago this month, Maestro Valery Gergiev
introduced Ann Arbor to his compatriot and protégé, the young pianist
Denis Matsuev. The pianist's performance of Rachmaninov's Third
Concerto with the Mariinsky Orchestra... more> |
Concert
Review: Mark Elder conducts Donizetti's Belisario at the
Barbican for Opera Rara Although it comes on the heels of his
oft-performed Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti's Belisario is rarely
performed in major venues outside of Italy despite its obvious
strengths as a work bursting with musical and dramatic delights. This
period of composition in Donizetti's oeuvre is... more> |
Opera
Review: Ullmann's The Emperor of Atlantis revived by English
Touring Opera Bold, adventurous programming from ETO in their
autumn tour this year saw two relative rareties on the operatic stage,
The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies and The Emperor of Atlantis by
Viktor Ullmann, coupled... more> |
Opera
Review: The ROH revives Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore with
Roberto Alagna Like a host of other Italian libretti of the period,
Romani's libretto for Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore was the result of an
adaptation of a pre-existing French source – the rather slight text by
Scribe for Auber's Le Philtre - to which it famously adds considerable
pathos and... more> |
Concert
Review: Christopher Warren-Green leads the LCO in London The London
Chamber Orchestra has a loyal following, a distinguished body of
patrons and can be known to punch above its musical weight. For
its second, and well-attended Cadogan Hall concert in the 2012/13
season, its charismatic conductor Christopher Warren-Green... more> |
Concert
Review: Bychkov and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra perform Wagner and
Strauss at Carnegie Hall Richard Wagner, hiding out from the law
(he had participated in a failed revolutionary coup) at the home of one
of his benefactors, Otto Wesendonck, not only seduced the man's wife,
the poetess Mathilde, but also romanced and eventually married his
prominent... more> |
Interview:
Joyce DiDonato on I capuleti, the opera industry and 'the
Olympics of the art world' American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato
returns to the San Francisco Opera this month as Romeo in I
capuleti e i Montecchi. The SFO's audiences will remember her
thrilling Rosina in the 2003-04 production of Il barbiere di
Siviglia - a role she has... more> |
Concert
Review: Gergiev conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in New York
Extraordinary music was the feature of the two all-Brahms evenings by
the London Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall this week. I
happened to be in London when the announcement came that Valery Gergiev
would be named as the new music director and shared the view... more> |
Opera
Review: Don Giovanni returns to ENO After so many
productions of Mozart's Don Giovanni last season, this space has played
host to my annoyance at the lack of productions of the opera
unconcerned with morality. Is it really so much to ask that after 200
years we begin defamiliarizing the familiar? Imagine my surprise, then,
when all along there was... more> |
Interview:
Nicole Cabell on San Francisco Opera’s I capuleti and the
future of opera Californian-born soprano Nicole Cabell is fast
becoming one of the most talked-about singers around. In 2005 she won
the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, a success that launched
her onto the international operatic circuit. Her most recent roles
include Micaëla in Carmen... more> |
Concert
Review: Murray Perahia plays Haydn, Schubert, Chopin in Ann Arbor
After witnessing the University of Michigan's 12-9 football victory
over longtime rival Michigan State University on Saturday, Ann
Arborites had a reason to celebrate. While sports fans crowded into
local bars, another set of fans made their way... more> |
Concert
Review: Leonard Elschenbroich plays the Elgar Cello Concert with the
Wroclaw Philharmonic The uprush of the strings to the first
triumphant E flat major full orchestral chords of Elgar’s concert
overture In the South normally tell you what sort of performance is in
store. Elgar dedicated the piece to his friend and wealthy... more> |
Concert
Review: Muti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Ann Arbor
In May 1913, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra became the first ensemble
to play in Ann Arbor's newly constructed Hill Auditorium. In honor of
the concert hall's centennial season, the University Musical Society —
Ann Arbor's premiere arts presenter — invited the CSO back to Hill to
perform on Thursday... more> |
Opera
Review: A new production of Handel's Julius Caesar at ENO
Händel’s Julius Caesar at the English National Opera is exciting
theatre – not least because of the magnificent dancing of the Fabulous
Beast Dance Theatre – but the production may need some getting used to.
I attended last week’s dress rehearsal and was deeply unhappy with the
concept... more> |
Review
Diary: Recent concert events in Budapest This concert formed part
of a week of celebrations of Liszt in the Esztergom 'Vatican' – that is
in the seat of the Archbishop of Esztergom – and it was organised for
the fifth year by the Liszt Society. Liszt is mainly known by music
lovers for his piano pieces and by few of his orchestral
compositions... more> |
Opera
Review: The last-ever revival of Nicholas Hytner's The Magic Flute
at ENO It is hard to argue with those who, from time to time,
expect new productions of old masterpieces. New approaches to old works
need to be considered to keep with the changing times and to keep great
works alive. However, I for one find it shameful that Nicholas Hytner’s
excellent production... more> |
Opera
Review: Mixed results from a new production of Martinu's Julietta
at ENO Ah, reality. That oh-so-difficult-to-define concept that
opera has never had a good relationship with, either in or out of the
opera house (verismo being the case-in-point). Luckily, English
National Opera has chosen an excellent production team to deal with the
intricacies - and problems... more> |
Proms
Review: Prom 57 featured the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester
Currently celebrating its 25th anniversary, Claudio Abbado’s acclaimed
Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester is now almost as old as its most senior
members. With its players drawn annually from among Europe’s most
musically gifted young people, the orchestra’s first quarter-... more> |
BBC
Proms Review: Glyndebourne brings Le nozze di Figaro to the
Proms It’s difficult to imagine a venue less like Glyndebourne’s
warm, intimate opera house than the Royal Albert Hall. No
singer-friendly wooden panelling here – just cavernous spaces and those
aerial mushrooms. As we’ve seen time and time again, what suits a
deluxe modern theatre doesn’t always transfer well elsewhere.... more>
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BBC
Prom Review: The John Cage Centenary is marked by an ambitious Prom
Whatever one might say about the stodginess of Proms programming, it is
undeniable that giving over a full evening Prom to a celebration of
John Cage in his centenary year was a brave and commendable move from
the BBC and Roger Wright. Even more commendable than this basic fact -
which may after all have been accomplished with hedging of bets and
fallings... more> |
BBC
Prom Review: Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in Prom 63
For the first of the Berlin Philharmonic’s two concerts at this year’s
Proms, Simon Rattle put together a programme that erred very much on
the side of substance as opposed to spectacle. Although composers such
as Wagner, Ravel and Sibelius clearly have barnstormers and
crowd-pleasers in their catalogues... more>
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Proms
Review: Proms 43 and 44 include the London Sinfonietta and Royal
Philharmonic Despite the keyed up reception accorded the Royal
Philharmonic and Charles Dutoit following their punchy but broad
performance of Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony at the close, this Prom
fell rather flat on the whole. The fault lay, chiefly, in the
programming... more> |
BBC
Proms Review: Thierry Fischer conducts his final concert as the
BBCNOW's Principal Conductor Berlioz’s 1837 Requiem is not for
the musically faint-hearted. With its massive battery of percussion –
in this performance at least 16 timpani were visible to the naked eye –
and several pit bands’ worth of brass.... more>
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Opera
Review: A sensational Ravel double bill from Glyndebourne For the
final new production of the 2012 Festival, Glyndebourne opted for a
relative rarety in the operatic canon – the double bill of Ravel’s two
one act operas, written fifteen years apart from each other and
separated by the First World War. And what an emotional distance
there is between them, L’Heure Espagnole.... more> |
Proms
Review: Proms 35 and 36 feature Scandanavian music followed by Ivor
Novello The tribute, which took the form of a condensed, musically
illustrated biography, was led by a warm and commanding narrator, Simon
Callow, whose humorous, well-observed and tonally pitch perfect script
provided the backbone to the Hallé Orchestra and Mark Elder’s spirited
renderings of many of Novello’s most enduring songs... more> |
BBC
Proms Review: Thrilling results from Daniel Barenboim's Beethoven Cycle
Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’s
Beethoven Proms marathon, in which the composer’s complete symphonies
are being performed across five concerts, culminates on 27 July ... more> |
Proms
Review: Prom 34 features Semyon Bychkov with the BBCSO In the
morning of 8th August 2012, on the day of this concert, the BBC
Symphony Orchestra announced that Semyon Bychkov will join their roster
of conductors with a position created especially for him by the
orchestra. The title Günter Wand Conducting Chair was chosen in
recognition of the affection... more> |
Opera
Review: The Bavarian State Opera's Der Rosenkavalier with Renee
Fleming Unlike Wagner's late operas, which pay ever increasing
dividends for the time invested, the inadequacies of Strauss's Der
Rosenkavalier become ever more apparent on repeated
exposure. Hofmannsthal's wordy libretto is partly to blame:
everything seems to continue on long after the dramatic and musical
point has already been made. And when this is combined... more> |
CD
Review: The Word Unspoken from Signum The extraordinary
nature of William Byrd’s life and the impact that it had on his music
has been well documented on disc since the late 60s when, amongst
others, Sir David Willcocks and The Choir of King’s College Cambridge
recorded motets by Byrd And His Contemporaries (EMI 1965) and Cantores
In Ecclesia directed.... more> |
Proms
Review: Prom 15 brings together Smetana and Dvorak with the BBCSO
It was back in 1940 that the Hungarian born conductor George Szell
orchestrated Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, ‘From My Life’
and later, in 1944, he included the piece in his debut with the
Cleveland Orchestra. Within two years Szell was asked to become the
orchestra’s music director and he held the post until his death in
1970. Szell and the CO recorded his Smetana... more> |
Opera
Review: OHP's Falstaff Verdi’s Falstaff is quite a tricky
work to produce well and Opera Holland Park’s production proved that
beyond a measurable doubt. It’s delicate blend of music and
poignant—though, certainly at times, irreverent—perspective of the
human condition ("Tutto nel mondo é burla") are a hallmark of Verdi’s
final stroke of genius.... more> |
Opera
Review: Otello at Covent Garden Most agree that opera
experienced a golden age in the latter half of the 20th century. It was
a time when one went to the opera to hear very difficult works
performed at the highest quality: singers had no problems projecting
over the largest orchestras in the world and reaching the very back of
the house. ... more>
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Opera
Review: The Bavarian State Opera's Turandot How do you
solve a problem like Turandot? Perhaps by not trying
to. Franco Alfano and more recently Luciano Berio have each
attempted to complete the opera from the mass of sketches Puccini left
at his death. But Alfano’s ending is felt by most to be too
bombastic and Berio’s too out of keeping with the style of the
rest. So, in Carlus Padrissa’s spectacular new production for
Bavarian... more> |
Opera
Review: Lully's Armide at Glimmerglass Festival "It’s good
to be the king," says a smug Mel Brooks famously while dressed as Louis
XVI in the 1981 film comedy, History of the World, Part I.
But for listeners brought up on a steady diet of da
capo and bel canto arias from 18th and 19th-century
operas, the seemingly endless drone of récitatifs and
airs endemic to 17th-century... more> |
Opera
Review: Rolando Villazon in the Bavarian State Opera's Tales of
Hoffmann Richard Jones often likes to take a risk or two,
which means when his productions work they can be exceptional (the edgy
Hansel and Gretel for WNO); but when they fail they can be excruciating
(the nervous-laughter inducing Macbeth for Glyndebourne). Tales of
Hoffmann, though, could almost have been written with... more> |
Proms
Review: Prom 11 showcases The Royal Opera's Les troyens
There is no other opera that can legitimately match Hector Berlioz’s
Les Troyens for its sheer musical and dramatic ingenuity, creative
prowess, and magnificent scale. Berlioz’s epic is genius: he wrote the
libretto himself to create a truly unique work; an opera that is both
loosely based on (Acts I and II and the end of V) and strictly
conforming to (Acts III, IV, and V) Virgil’s... more> |
Opera
Review: Bryn Terfel in the Bavarian State Opera's Tosca
Those beautiful Puccini arias that are the mainstay of opera
compilation CDs are, of course, even better in the theatre. But it
is the high stakes, life and death struggles, usually in the second
act, usually between a bass and a soprano, where his operas earn their
place in the repertory. He had an unerring gift for dramatic... more> |
Proms
Review: Rare Handel from Laurence Cummings and the OAE in Prom 8
Composed in 1746 and revised in 1750, surprisingly this performance was
the Prom debut of Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus. Performances of this
oratorio tend to be few and far between, yet in Handel’s lifetime – and
throughout the 19th century as well as into the 20th century – it was
highly regarded... more> |
Musical
Theatre Review: The Music Man at Glimmerglass Festival
Composer Meredith Willson was so worried his listeners might miss words
during the briskly paced patter ("talk-song") sections of The
Music Man, he rigged a string of microphones that spanned the
entire front floor of the stage... more> |
Proms
Review: Contrasting performances of French music in Prom 3 and Chamber
Prom 1 As operas go, Debussy’s fin-de-siècle masterpiece Pélléas
et Mélisande is anything but action-packed. Ranking alongside Wagner’s
Tristan (man and woman fall – or already are – in love; later one or
both die) and Poulenc’s La Voix humaine (woman makes phone call) at... more> |
Opera
Review: Mixed results from Glyndebourne's new Figaro
Every new production of Figaro at Glyndebourne – and this is the ninth
new production since 1934 – is a special event. Whether or not the
spirit of la folle journée ... more> |
Opera
Review: Cape Town Opera's Porgy and Bess at the London Coliseum
Cape Town Opera is showing Porgy and Bess in triple cast at
the London Coliseum. Their cast lists for their performances state that
'Cast subject to change without prior notice'. Having not seen or heard
any of Cape Town Opera's singers prior to the performance which I am
reporting on... more> |
Opera
Review: Angela Gheorghiu in the Bavarian State Opera's La boheme
Puccini’s La bohème might be classed as verismo, but it has
little to do with the political aims of the original naturalist
movement. Rather than confronting its well-heeled audiences with
the true horror of working class squalor, the poverty here provides an
exotic ... more> |
Opera
Review: The Queen of Spades at Grange Park Opera The
‘big’ opera mounted at Grange Park this year is a bold choice: if
Eugene Onegin is a guaranteed box office hit, and is highly adaptable
to the intimate spaces of summer opera venues like Iford and Stanley
Hall Opera... more> |
Opera
Review: Stanley Hall Opera offers an intriguing double bill of Mozart
and Leoncavallo There may be something catching in the air, but
like a number of other venues in 2012 such as Glyndebourne and Holland
Park, Stanley Hall Opera opted in its twelfth season for a double
bill... more> |
Opera
Review: Mixed results from Glyndebourne's new Figaro
Every new production of Figaro at Glyndebourne – and this is the ninth
new production since 1934 – is a special event. Whether or not the
spirit of la folle journée ... more> |
Interview:
Legendary bass Ferruccio Furlanetto in conversation about Verdi's Attila,
operatic rarities, and his dream roles It is virtually impossible
to summarize superstar bass Ferruccio Furlanetto's career: he is known
to every opera lover for his signature roles of Verdi's Philip II,
Fiesco, and Mozart's Leporello, among the countless characters... more> |
Concert
Review: A showcase concert for London Sinfonietta's Blue Touch Paper
programme Blue Touch gives early-career composers the chance to
work on music with the ensemble, which also arranges consultations with
established composers, who in the past have included Gerald Barry, Olga
Neuwirth, and Michael van der Aa.... more>
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CD
Review: Two Kairos releases of music by Friedrich Cerha and Unsuk Chin Last
week Friedrich Cerha, who is now in his late eighties, was announced as
the 2012 winner of the Ernst von Siemens music prize. Worth €200,000,
the prize was awarded in recognition of... more> |
Opera
Review: A new production of Britten's Billy Budd at ENO
Britten’s Billy Budd tells such a tragic tale that it is harrowing to
experience even if one just reads the libretto (by E. M. Forster and
Eric Crozier, adapted from the story by Herman Melville). There is no
light relief at all in the story, which centres around the destruction
of young Billy by the sadistic Claggart but also portrays cruelty as...
more>
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Interview:
We chat to the cast of Nixon in China at the SF Opera The
summer season at the San Francisco Opera started a couple of weeks ago,
and audience and critics agree that Nixon in China, the famous
first opera by John Adams, represents one of the highlights of the
operatic summer. The SF Opera presented a sober and subtle production
from the Vancouver Opera... more> |
Opera
Review: Luisotti and Furlanetto make Verdi's Attila shine
This production of Attila at the San Francisco Opera
represented one of the most precious operatic experiences for this
particular member of the audience. The singers displayed an exceptional
level of harmony with one another and with the orchestra. Moreover,
maestro Nicola Luisotti's passionate reading of the score revealed one
surprise after another... more>
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CD
review: The Schubert Ensemble performs Brahms and Schubert The
Schubert Ensemble are highly regarded for their sensitive, musical
performances of the piano plus strings repertoire – especially the
Schubert and Brahms masterpieces. It is a real shame, then, that
on these two discs they have been let down by poor recording.... more> |
Opera
Review: A Knussen double bill provides the perfect start to the
Aldeburgh Festival The Artist in Residence at this year’s Aldeburgh
Festival, the 65th, is a composer/conductor who has long associations
with Aldeburgh and indeed shaped its artistic programme for a decade –
Oliver Knussen. Knussen is 60 this... more>
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Opera
review: Cosi fan tutte at Opera Holland Park All six
principal singers were excellent. They sounded ideal in their roles
even though Dorabella’s soprano part was taken by mezzo-soprano Julia
Riley (whose looks and singing style reminded me, rightly or wrongly,
of a young Felicity Lott). Tenor Andrew Staples... more> |
Concert
Review: Florian Boesch at the Aldeburgh Festival The Austrian
bass-baritone Florian Boesch has been making quite a name for himself
in recent years, and when it was announced that he would step in at
very short notice at the Aldeburgh Festival for an indisposed Matthias
Goerne there were muffled whoops of... more>
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CD
Review: Paul McCreesh presents an impressive album of A Song of
Farewell A Song of Farewell: Music of Mourning and Consolation
is, in many ways, an aural discussion of death. While this description
may sound depressing or daunting, the album presents, as the subtitle
suggests, a comfort that poignantly complements the sadness. Though
famed in the world of ... more> |
Opera
Review: Nixon in China successfully debuts at the San Francisco
Opera On Friday 8 June, the San Francisco Opera presented the
long-awaited Bay Area debut of Nixon in China, the first
opera by one of the most acclaimed contemporary composers, John
Adams. After twenty-five years since its premiere, this work
by Adams with a libretto by Alice Goodman remains equally controversial
and popular. At the end of the performance... more>
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Opera
interview: British soprano Claire Rutter on Madama Butterfly at
Grange Park Any regular operagoer in the UK over the last five
years will have noticed the further ascent of that rare commodity - an
English star soprano able to hold her own in almost any major role and
in any major international company. Claire Rutter, now in the
prime of her singing life (she is in her early forties) has garnered...
more> |
Review:
Garsington takes on Vivaldi's Olympian L'Olimpiade
L’Olimpiade, Metastasio’s libretto of 1733 – written 1340 years after
the last of the ancient Olympic games – provides the text for a
pastoral opera with the background of the Olympic games. It is a play
set in green outdoors with aristocratic characters, one of whom is
disguised as a shepherdess. What better setting for such an opera than
the new Wormsley... more>
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CD
Review: Naive releases L'Olimpiade by a range of composers
As the 2012 Olympics approach, London is bedecked with nationalist
symbolism not only for the games but for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
which would appear to have provoked us, as a nation, to rejoice in a
nostalgic revisiting of 1950s taste. Whereas coronation favourites such
as teacakes and sponge... more> |
CD
Review: The Florestan Trio records Beethoven's Piano Trios on Hyperion
Just a few months ago, after sixteen successful years together the
Florestan Trio gave their last concerts in London. Now Anthony Marwood
(violin), Richard Lester (cello) and Susan Tomes (piano) are each off
exploring fresh musical pastures. So this four-disc boxed set of
the Beethoven Trios, each released individually... more>
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CD
Review: Vivaldi's Teuzzone features in a dazzling recording
from Naive Teuzzone is the twelfth opera in naïve’s Vivaldi
Edition’s series and, incidentally, the first new release by Jordi
Savall (Farnace was first previously on Alia Vox). The opera belongs to
a period of Venetian obsession with exoticism and chinoiseries
influenced by the city’s trading links... more> |
Review:
David McVicar's production of Salome returns to Covent Garden
It may not matter a great deal in the large scheme of things, but I am
puzzled by an arguably small change between Richard Strauss' score of
Salome and stage director David McVicar's realisation. In the score the
executioner is not listed among the roles although he is referred to in
the German stage directions... more>
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Opera
Review: Glanert's Caligula comes to ENO Detlev Glanert’s
opera on Albert Camus’ 1944 play Caligula, with a libretto by
Hans-Ulrich Treichel,premiered to great acclaim in Frankfurt in 2006.
Caligula’s first UK production opened at the Coliseum last night in a
new staging by much-admired theatre director Benedict Andrews... more> |
Editorial:
San Diego Opera presents a benefit concert featuring Renée Fleming and
announces 2012-13 season The global economic climate has been
chilly for enough years now that the persistent financial struggle for
arts organizations is no longer big news. Regional opera companies and
symphony orchestras have folded all across the United States, with even
long-established... more>
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Opera
Review: American Symphony Orchestra and Collegiate Chorale perform a
rare Notre Dame by Schmidt Founded in 1962, the American
Symphony Orchestra ranks as one of the most important contributors to
the classical music scene in New York. Under the leadership of Leon
Botstein, the ASO offers thematic series of concerts that
highlight the connections between... more> |
Editorial:
Opera Holland Park's new season offers rarities and favourites
Opera Holland Park continues to surprise its diverse audience with
eclectic offerings; indeed, the company’s egalitarian spirit and focus
on both popular and obscure (mostly Italian and especially versimo)
operas has certainly brought the genre to a larger, younger audience
whilst still catering for aficionados. To successfully... more>
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Opera
Review: Nelly Miricioiu celebrates her 60th birthday with Donizetti's Maria
Padilla Such was the display of vocal dexterity from Nelly
Miricioiu as Maria and Marianne Cornetti as Ines in the Chelsea Opera
Group’s performance of Maria Padilla that by the end, it almost felt
like the Olympics had come early. This extraordinary but almost unknown
opera from Donizetti’s maturity... more> |
Editorial:
My Fair Lady and Les troyens amongst the rich
pickings of the Olympic Proms season While the country's
sportspeople prepare to gather for the London Olympics, there's also a
sense of the "Best of British" about the BBC Proms season, announced
today. Gilbert and Sullivan, Ivor Novello... more>
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Opera
Review: A new Falstaff for Covent Garden Verdi’s final
opera is a consummate blend of comedy, shades of melodrama, and
self-parody. It takes a truly disciplined production to manifest some
of these associations, and Robert Carson’s crowd pleaser at the Royal
Opera takes great strides toward this difficult goal. It helped,
though, that the singers... more> |
Concert
Review: Jordi Savall at the Lufthansa Festival With his ensemble Le
Concert des Nations – named after Couperin’s unification of European
styles in his innovative collection Les nations – the grand old man of
baroque Jordi Savall emphasizes a variety of baroque styles within the
communality of high quality music making... more>
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Concert
Review: John Butt presents another riveting evening at the Lufthansa
Festival of Baroque Music Some 24 hours after the British summer
officially began the sunshine was streaming into St John’s Smith Square
for an all-Bach program from much-loved Scottish baroque specialists,
The Dunedin Consort and their charismatic director, John Butt. This
year’s festival is titled... more> |
Editorial:
We talk to Wasfi Kani as she prepares to open Grange Park Opera's 15th
season With three weeks to go, rehearsals in full swing and a
plethora of tasks to complete and conundrums great and small to resolve
before the curtain goes up for opening night of the 15th Grange Park
Opera festival... more>
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Concert
Review: Stephane Deneve says farewell to the RSNO So Scotland bids
adieu to Stéphane Denève. After seven years of lighting up Scottish
concert life, he bowed out in a blaze of glory, fêted by politicians,
diplomats, business leaders, fellow artists, and the loyal audience
that he has built during his... more> |
Opera
review: Madam Butterfly at ENO There are certain operas in
the canon that mysteriously need nothing else except their music to
successfully compel audiences. As one of the most consistently
performed since its (fifth) revision, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly
certainly ranks within this selection— however ironically since operas
are by nature more than "just music."... more>
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Concert
Review: Stephane Deneve with the RSNO Long after memories of this
concert melt into the general filing system, people will remember the
encore that the Canadian virtuoso James Ehnes performed tonight:
Paganini's famous caprice no. 24. It is hard to think of another work
that says ‘look upon my encore, o ye mortals... more> |
Concert
review: The Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Jakub Hrusa Most of the
buzz about Gramophone Magazine's 'ten conductors on the verge of
greatness', published this time last year, seems to have been generated
by Gramophone Magazine. Maybe that's because, being behind a paywall,
their content doesn't get linked to – and links are what make internet
... more>
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Concert
Review: Beethoven with the SCO Although he met with little success
in the opera house, there is quite a substantial body of work for the
theatre in Beethoven’s catalogue. Most of the time, all we hear in the
concert-hall are the overtures, but the SCO’s choral season finale
presented a welcome opportunity to ... more> |
Opera
review: La boheme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Productions of Puccini’s works these days inevitably raise questions
about operatic realism or, as it’s more commonly known, verismo. At
first glance, operatic realism doesn’t appear to be a very complicated
issue. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, composers and
librettists (of the giovane scoula)... more>
|
Opera
Review: Wagner's Flying Dutchman at ENO Oscar Wilde
famously said of The Old Curiosity Shop: 'One would have to have a
heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without dissolving into
tears ... of laughter'. The same might be said of The Flying Dutchman
where, in one of the... more> |
Editorial:
Walt Disney becomes the subject of new opera for ENO English
National Opera announced its 2012-2013 season this morning and, as one
might expect, it is typical of the company: bold, innovative, and
"risky." John Berry, the artistic director, additionally emphasized the
family values (if you will) of the company, highlighting the many
artists that will be returning to give a little back to the institution
responsible for nurturing their careers... more>
|
Opera
review: The London Premiere of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's
Einstein on the Beach at the Barbican As operas go, Einstein on
the Beach is a rich and strange one. No real characters, no plot,
no narrative, no climaxes, no arias, no dialogue, no comedy, no tragedy
– and... more> |
Opera
review: Willy Decker's Traviata at the Met starring Dessay
Willy Decker wasn't the first man to try and gain a better
perspective of the courtesan Violetta by examining what lay beneath the
iconic red dress. But I have to wonder whether the German
director's psychological undressing of the heroine in the present Met
production has uncovered anything more revealing than his
predecessors... more>
|
Opera
Review: A rare performance of Mozart's Il sogno di Scipione
by Gotham Chamber Opera Il sogno di Scipione (The
Dream of Scipio) was the fifth of Mozart's operas, composed
(unbelievably) when he was 16. The libretto was written by Pietro
Metastasio, after Cicero. It was presumably first performed... more> |
Opera
review: The European Premiere of Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being
Earnest at the Barbican There may be some who, on hearing that the
new opera by Gerald Barry is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's landmark
comic play, would give it a wide berth. Barry's music can be
notoriously spiky and unpredictable; Wilde's text on the other hand
is... more>
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Opera
Review: The Collegiate Chorale perform The Mikado The
Mikado is possibly one of the most frequently-played
operettas world-wide. This season there was a new production at the
Gärtnerplatz in Munich, among other venues. The reasons for its
enduring popularity are not difficult to fathom... more> |
Opera
Review: Sir Colin Davis conducts Weber's Der Freischutz with
the LSO Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz was sensational at
its première in 1821 and quickly became an international phenomenon
rivaled only by the operas of Rossini. Although Freischütz was in
several respects anticipated by Louis Spohr’s Faust and E.T.A.
Hoffman’s Undine... more>
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Opera
Review: La Fille du Regiment returns to Covent Garden with a
new cast Laurent Pelly's 2007 production of La Fille Du Régiment,
now at its second revival at the Royal Opera House, is delightful
entertainment... more>
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Concert
Review: Christian Curnyn leads the SCO and Nicola Benedetti in The Four
Seasons For the Vivaldi concerto Curnyn was joined by Nicola
Benedetti, a picture of elegance in an ooh-I-say vermilion silk gown on
a classically Grecian theme. Undoubtedly her very attractive stage
presence is part of her appeal. By all accounts... more>
|
Interview
Feature: We chat to General Director of Glyndebourne, David Pickard, as
the 2012 season gets underway We caught up with David Pickard,
General Director at Glyndebourne, to ask for his take on the
forthcoming season. He sees it as a season of old favourites... more> |
Opera
Review: A gay reworking of Don Giovanni at London's Heaven
nightclub Opera houses and nightclubs have more in common than one
might think. In nineteenth-century Italy, it was common for Austrian
authorities to take an interest in the programming of many houses,
simply because a large part of the educated population congregated
there and could be easily observed. Of course, these days systems of
power are further decentralized and... more>
|
Editorial:
My Fair Lady and Les troyens amongst the rich
pickings of the Olympic Proms season While the country's
sportspeople prepare to gather for the London Olympics, there's also a
sense of the "Best of British" about the BBC Proms season, announced
today. Gilbert and Sullivan, Ivor Novello... more>
|
Concerts
Review: Daniel Barenboim returns to the Festival Hall for his Bruckner
cycle After Beethoven, and Beethoven and Schoenberg, Daniel
Barenboim's latest project at the South Bank Centre features another
'B', albeit one whose centrality in the repertory is still not quite
secure: Bruckner. In three concerts, he and his Staatskapealle Berlin
are presenting his final three symphonies, and in this first one... more>
|
Concert
Review: Vadim Gluzman performs a rarity with the BBCSO Full marks
to the BBC SO for programming Balys Dvarionas's Violin Concerto and
thus facilitating its timely UK premiere. Statistics are not on hand
but it is likely that, although composed in 1948, this unjustly
neglected work still awaits its premiere... more> |
Musical
Review: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Pipe Dream at the New York
City Center Pipe Dream, which opened at the Shubert
Theatre in the winter of 1955, is the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical
that preceded the TV spectacular, Cinderella, and
Broadway's Flower Drum Song (1957). Based on the
John Steinbeck story Sweet Thursday, the material, with
its drifters... more>
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Concert
Review: Varga and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Bronfman perform
Mendelssohn, Bartok and Stravinsky Georg Solti, a Hungarian who
lived a good part of his life in London, once televised a demonstration
that was quite revelatory. He sat at the piano and played the
orchestral beginning of Duke Bluebeard's Castle, which
sounded as we have become accustomed to hearing it... more> |
Opera
Review: A rare outing for Jakob Lenz at ENO During ENO’s
new production of Wolfgang Rihm’s chamber opera Jakob Lenz (1977-8),
Andrew Shore, putting in an impressive turn in the title role, ends up
getting dunked in an onstage pool of water no fewer than four times.
New director on the block, Sam Brown, though, has good artistic reasons
for this treatment of his more experienced leading man. The source
for... more>
|
Editorial:
Musical diversity in Budapest Established in 1853, the Budapest
Philharmonic Orchestra is Hungary's oldest functioning orchestra. Drawn
from musicians of the Hungarian State Opera, for many years it was
Hungary's only professional orchestra. They worked with such
distinguished composer-conductors... more> |
Opera
Review: Soile Isokoski and Alice Coote in Der Rosenkavalier in
Geneva Some forty years after its creation for the Bavarian State
Opera, Otto Schenk's production of Der Rosenkavalier has found its way
to Geneva Opera, where it will play in repertoire until 12
April. If there is relatively little new to say about a vintage
production... more>
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Concert
Review: Olga Borodina joins Valery Gergiev for the Verdi Requiem
Verdi's Messa da Requiem is undoubtedly a religious work, significantly
different from his operas, notably in terms of structure, texture, and
style. Written to commemorate the death of the Italian patriot
Alessandro... more> |
Opera
Interview: Gerald Barry talks about his latest opera, The Importance of
Being Earnest On a sunny Friday morning in London I meet Gerald
Barry to discuss his latest opera, The Importance of Being
Earnest. Earnest has its UK premiere at the Barbican on 26
April, performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
conducted by Tom Adès... more>
|
Editorial:
What does the pre-Britten centenary Aldeburgh Festival have on offer?
Little acorns and mighty oaks… as the countdown to the 65th Aldeburgh
Festival progresses, in the relative calm of 2012 before the storm of
Benjamin Britten's music that will resonate all around the world in
2013, the centenary of Britten's birth... more> |
Opera
Review: Rigoletto with John Eliot Gardiner in the pit at Covent
Garden Since its première in 1851, Verdi’s Rigoletto has remained
an audience favorite for its catchy tunes and poignant treatment of a
captivating story, one that resonates strongly even today. Often hailed
as a revolutionary step "forward" in Verdi’s oeuvre, Rigoletto weaves
several... more> |
Interview
Feature: We chat to General Director of Glyndebourne, David Pickard, as
the 2012 season gets underway We caught up with David Pickard,
General Director at Glyndebourne, to ask for his take on the
forthcoming season. He sees it as a season of old favourites... more> |
Concert
Review: Joseph Swenson returns to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Making one of his welcome visits as conductor emeritus, the SCO’s
former principal conductor Joseph Swensen brought his
characteristically ebullient and passionate personality to this
thoughtfully assembled programme with its dancing thread... more> |
Opera
Review: Rameau's Acante et Céphise Operatic “special
occasion” pieces usually die with their final curtain call, though the
most notable exception is probably Rossini’s Il viaggo a Reims, which
stubbornly persists to this day. Interestingly, University College
Opera (which has a long history of performing rare or new works)
mounted a production... more> |
Concert
Review: Murray Perahia plays Bach, Schubert and Chopin at Avery Fisher
Hall The 250 years since the death of Johann Sebastian Bach have
been the most revolutionary in human history, so it is not that
surprising to realize that the music that he composed is a considerable
distance from that which we hear today. Even the best efforts... more> |
Opera
News: Covent Garden announces details of the 2012-13 season The
Royal Opera announced its “revival focused” 2012/2013 season this
morning, with six new productions, a star-studded roster, and some
promising revelations. The ebullient Director of Opera Kasper Holten
(with Associate Director John Fulljames) have planned quite... more> |
Opera
Review: Judith Weir's disappointing new Miss Fortune
Whenever I see a new opera, I play a game. I simply ignore entirely the
programme notes and synopsis. Often, this little bit of fun allows me
to recapture the excitement of audience members past. To witness a new
work in all its glory, experience the plot twists and turns, the text,
and the music in the... more> |
Advertisement:
Musical Criticism announces vacancies for contributing writers and
opera editor The vacancies are open to applicants based in any
geographical location where there are regular professional concerts to
review. No particular geographical location has priority: whether
you're based in Glasgow or Cardiff, San Diego or Shanghai...more> |
Opera
Review: The Guildhall's Midsummer Night's Dream The last
outing of Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream on the London opera stage
seemed to be more concerned with the composer's sexuality than with his
witty masterpiece based on Shakespeare's play (May 2011, English
National Opera). Once bitten twice shy, thus one could be forgiven for
being slightly worried about other... more> |
Opera
Review: English National Opera's Death of Klinghoffer John
Adams' and Alice Goodman's 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer has been
trailed by controversy throughout its twenty-one year history.
Scheduled performances at Glyndebourne and the Los Angeles Opera were
cancelled after the stormy reception the opera received following its
1991 New York... more> |
Opera
Review: Ernani live from the Met Undoubtedly for some,
seeing opera live in cinemas is quite enjoyable. As I reclined in my
large seat and munched on some popcorn at my nearest local cinema
(Curzon Chelsea), I wondered if displaced opera was the way of the
future. After all, there are serious advantages to watching opera in a
cinema... more> |
Editorial:
The Maestro myth? The Royal Opera recently announced that
it would be furthering its collaboration with the BBC by playing host
to the television reality/contest show 'Maestro.' In contrast to the
first season of the show, there will be only... more> |
Concert
Review: Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic perform Mahler at
Carnegie Hall In his three year tenure at Carnegie Hall, Mahler
only selected from his own work his first two symphonies, even though
he had seven (and later eight) from which to choose. He had been stung
before by bad critical receptions and exhibited in New York a rather
uncharacteristic timidity in choice... more> |
Interview:
Vivica Genaux chats about her American tour and her new music ensemble
Mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux maintains a schedule of performances that
reflects a great deal of intellectual curiosity. Given her status as
one of the most sought-after Baroque specialists, she has not chosen to
remain content with a handful of roles, like many other singers tend to
do once... more> |
Opera
Review: Rusalka comes to Covent Garden for the first time
Rusalka has finally made it to Covent Garden, but, in Jossi Wieler and
Sergio Morabito's wilfully shabby production, it has arrived in
inexpressive and unlovely form. The boos and countering cheers that
greeted the directorial team at the curtain—even though this was
branded a new production, it was first seen in Salzburg in 2008... more> |
Concert
Review: Mark Elder conducts Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet
Hector Berlioz was not generally a reticent composer, least of all when
it came to pronouncing on the value of his own music and the attention
it deserved. Writing about his 1839 ‘symphonie dramatique’ Roméo et
Juliette he insisted: “The work is enormously difficult to perform... more> |
Opera
Review: Raymond Gubbay's Aida at the Royal Albert Hall
Verdi's Aida is extremely intertextual. Conditioned by the historical
events surrounding its première and, as an inevitable product of
nineteenth-century Orientalism, scholars have fruitfully mined it for
decades for both its historical and critical significance. The new
production at the Royal Albert Hall... more> |
Opera
Review: A stellar cast introduces Richard Jones' new production of Tales
of Hoffmann to ENO Co-produced with the Bavarian State Opera
and recently performed by that company, English National Opera now
stages Richard Jones's take on Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. Without
doubt, the staging is entertaining and also thought provoking. However,
perhaps some of Jones's messages... more> |
Opera
Review: Silent Opera performs La boheme in the Old Vic Tunnels
Silent Opera present La Bohème in the series of linked rooms that form
the complex of tunnels under the approach to Waterloo Station. Trains
rumble and clatter overhead, the venue shakes and echoes but - or so
runs the concept, as set out in the programme blurb - you "walk around
with a... more> |
Concert
Review: Vivica Genaux performs Vivaldi with Europa Galante Living
in a city as rich in musical diversity as New York, it's easy to become
slightly blasé about the wealth of opportunities for hearing classical
music in live performance. Therefore, it was an uncommon thrill to be
present when Fabio Biondi and his superb ensemble Europa Galante took
the stage and... more> |
For older articles (2007-12), click here. |