Performances

05 Oct 2020

ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude

English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing. »

Recently in Performances

All Pages |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10  |  11  |  12  |  13  |  14  |  15  |  16  |  17  |  18  |  19  |  20  |  21  |  22  |  23  |  24  |  25  |  26  |  27  |  28  |  29  |  30  |  31  |  32  |  33  |  34  |  35  |  36  |  37  |  38  |  39  |  40  |  41  |  42  |  43  |  44  |  45  |  46  |  47  |  48  |  49  |  50  |  51  |  52  |  53  |  54  |  55  |  56  |  57  |  58  |  59  |  60  |  61  |  62  |  63  |  64  |  65  |  66  |  67  |  68  |  69  |  70  |  71  |  72  |  73  |  74  |  75  |  76  |  77  |  78  |  79  |  80  |  81  |  82  |  83  |  84  |  85  |  86  |  87  |  88  |  89  |  90 
19 Sep 2010

Un ballo in maschera at the Washington National Opera

Verdi’s 1859 hit Un ballo in maschera is an inspired choice to open an operatic season.  »

16 Sep 2010

Hugo Wolf’s Spanisches Liederbuch at Wigmore Hall

In this recital of thirty-four songs selected from Hugo Wolf’s Spanisches Liederbuch, Ian Bostridge and Angelika Kirchschlager revealed the profound emotional intensity of Wolf’s art; the concentrated ardour of their performance intimated the heightened passion and expressive angst which, as well as driving Wolf’s creative spirit, also led to persistent depression and resulted in insanity and finally death in mental asylum at the age of 42. »

15 Sep 2010

Don Pasquale at the Royal Opera House

This show, a revival of Jonathan Miller’s 2004 production (first seen at the Maggio Musicale in Florence) is certainly a feast for the eyes.  »

14 Sep 2010

Bayreuth’s Lohengrin: A ‘Rat’-ical Re-‘tail’-ing

It doesn’t take long for the summer’s new Lohengrin to reveal its entire bag of tricks as a large chorus of rats (yes, the chorus-as-rodents) scurries on at curtain-rise into the white science laboratory setting. »

13 Sep 2010

Così fan tutte, Royal Opera House

Everyone loves Mozart. The Royal Opera House's 2010-2011 season began with Così fan tutte, and simultaneous live international broadcast.  »

08 Sep 2010

Unique Rigoletto live from Mantua

Realism never comes more authentic than this RAI Rigoletto filmed live on location in Mantua, Italy and broadcast simultaneously in 148 countries..  »

01 Sep 2010

Englebert Humperdinck: Hansel und Gretel — BBC Prom 61

The annual visit of Glyndebourne Opera to the BBC Proms has become an eagerly awaited event.  »

24 Aug 2010

Aspen makes Corigliano’s Ghosts classic

When it debuted at the Met in 1991 John Corigliano’s overwrought and somewhat all-too comic Ghosts of Versailles was praised largely as a vehicle for the long-celebrated artistry of Teresa Stratas and Marilyn Horne. »

24 Aug 2010

Glimmerglass Rarities Out-Score Hall of Famer

To frame it in nearby-Cooperstown sports metaphors, the enterprising Glimmerglass Opera scored two decisive ‘home runs,’ and a decent enough ‘single’ in its 2010 Festival season.  »

24 Aug 2010

Sigismondo, La Cenerentola, Demetrio e Polibio at Pesaro

The fourteen year old Rossini composed his first opera Demetrio e Polibio in 1806 though it was not performed for another six years.  »

18 Aug 2010

Mozart and Rossini Finales at Grant Park, Chicago

During a recent concert at the Grant Park Music Festival, held on this occasion in the adjacent Harris Theater, members of the Ryan Opera Center of Lyric Opera of Chicago presented ensembles from four operas, two each by Mozart and by Rossini.  »

15 Aug 2010

Tales of Hoffmann at Santa Fe

The performances of Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann at Santa Fe Opera this summer are based on Michael Kaye’s edition of the score.  »

15 Aug 2010

Tristan in Seattle

Seattle, the city of software and Starbucks, is also a summer site for serious Wagnerites.  »

15 Aug 2010

To Loxford with Love

There was a time when the works of Benjamin Britten, one of the 20th-Century’s supreme composers, were not welcome at Santa Fe Opera. »

15 Aug 2010

Michael Christie conducts Corigliano in Aspen

Michael Christie, now 34, was too young to see John Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles when it was new at the Metropolitan Opera in 1991.  »

11 Aug 2010

Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto at Chicago Opera Theater

Although productions of Gioachino Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto are infrequent, the lively debate on successive versions of the work has generally led to questions of priority and to informative discussions on performance history.  »

10 Aug 2010

Middle Ages Next to Come

According to Paulus Diaconus’ Historia Langobardorum, both Lombard sovereigns warring for supremacy in late 7th-century Italy — the legitimate king Perctarit and Grimuald the usurper — behaved rather fairly to each other and their families.  »

06 Aug 2010

Prom 21 — Berlioz and Wagner

Period instruments and nineteenth-century grand opera are seldom found on the same stage — or even the same sentence — but as adventurous practitioners increasingly experiment in the repertoire of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, it’s a sight and sound that will inevitably become more familiar. »

02 Aug 2010

Der Ferne Klang, Bard College

Franz Schreker, born in 1878, was a youth in the age in which psychoanalysis first bloomed. In music, far from coincidentally, it was the post-Wagnerian era when western tonality had been liberated from traditional rules but was uncertain which new path to take.  »

01 Aug 2010

Maria di Rohan at Caramoor

Maria di Rohan was Donizetti’s penultimate opera, composed in Italian for Vienna in 1843, with revisions to appeal to the taste of Paris and Milan following.  »

26 Jul 2010

Santa Fe’s Mixed Dreams

Fairy Tales are often short on character, motivation and development. The stock figures are either good or bad, they are usually archetypal, and stand not only for themselves but larger dimensions of humanity.  »

26 Jul 2010

George Benjamin: Into the Little Hill, Linbury, London

George Benjamin is the leading British composer of his generation. Into the Little Hill premiered in 2006, has been acclaimed a masterpiece.  »

22 Jul 2010

Hoffmann Takes A Hit In Santa Fe

Despite its length and pretentions to being serious opera, Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, dating from the 1880s, remains a leaky vessel adrift on a sea of self-fulfilling prophesies of doom. »

21 Jul 2010

Angela Meade's Norma at Caramoor

Bellini’s Norma was composed in 1831 and, in the era of such singing actresses as Giuditta Pasta, Maria Malibran, Giuseppina Strepponi, Giulia Grisi and Thérèse Tietjens (famous Normas all), soon came to be known as the bel canto vehicle par excellence, the summit of vocal achievement.  »

20 Jul 2010

Simon Boccanegra at the Proms

Proms audiences have a tendency to be overly enthusiastic in showing their appreciation, with an arsenal of rituals and traditions at the ready to show their praise and adulation for their idols.  »

20 Jul 2010

Opera’s Brigadoon — OTSL’s 2010 Season of the Sublime

At the beginning of every summer, an oasis of music and theater appears like magic in the suburbs of St. Louis.  »

19 Jul 2010

Meistersinger at the Proms

The BBC Proms brought the Welsh National Opera’s hit Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg to the Royal Albert Hall and to the world, via international broadcast. »

18 Jul 2010

Mahler’s 8th at Royal Albert Hall

A performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony could only ever be relatively underwhelming; even a car crash of a performance would impress in some sense, indeed most likely in quite a few.  »

18 Jul 2010

Darkness Visible: Dowland and beyond

This was a recital of concentrated intensity — a remarkable dialogue between texts, timbres and idioms, across ages and among performers.  »

18 Jul 2010

Stars Sizzle, Productions Fizzle in Paris

So when did you last shout “bravissima”? »

18 Jul 2010

Star Power in Zürich’s Rosenkavalier

The annual Zürcher Festspiel banked on a heavy hitter to generate excitement for its revival of Der Rosenkavalier. »

13 Jul 2010

Don Giovanni, Alceste, Le Rossignol at the Aix Festival

The Aix Festival was known not so very long ago for pretentious productions. Perhaps now it will become known for good productions. »

12 Jul 2010

Handel’s Serse (Xerxes) at Iford Manor

Something rather extraordinary happened to opera seria in 1738. The acknowledged master of that time, London’s George Frideric Handel, presented two new operas at the King’s Theatre: Faramondo and Serse.  »

12 Jul 2010

Three Decembers at Central City

CENTRAL CITY — The story is banal: a single mother, an aging actress, is alienated from her grown-up children. »

12 Jul 2010

A Magnificent Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne

Don Giovanni isn't new and most of the cast at Glyndebourne (led by Gerald Finley) are familiar.  »

11 Jul 2010

Semele, Paris

The Parisian press was plastered with photos of Daniele de Niese. The glamorous 31-year old Sri Lankan-Australian mega-star is everywhere these days: a new TV series (“Diva Diaries”), a Decca greatest hits CD (“Diva”), and, with her marriage to Guy Christie of the Glyndebourne ruling clan, a secure position as the first lady of English opera. »

11 Jul 2010

Terfel’s Towering Hans Sachs Debuts at WNO

We have Welsh National Opera to thank not only for providing the occasion for an auspicious role debut, but also for showcasing their world star in a wholly brilliant new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. »

09 Jul 2010

La Traviata, Royal Opera

This was my first Verdi performance in the theatre for thirteen years or so I must have been the least jaded of critics for the opening night of the revival of Sir Richard Eyre’s La Traviata.  »

08 Jul 2010

Salome, London

David McVicar’s production of Salome received its first revival at Covent Garden, though McVicar left its revival in the capable hands of Justin Way.  »

08 Jul 2010

Out in a blaze of glory — Garsington, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Garsington Opera is moving to Wormsley Park. in 2011, but it marked its last production at Garsington Manor with a glorious coda, that augurs well for the future. As a friend remarked “We'll be talking about this for years to come”. »

07 Jul 2010

Central City stages Butterfly with a bite

CENTRAL CITY — No matter how much verismo you heap onto Madama Butterfly, the opera — the favorite of American companies — remains a threadbare — if tragic — tale of a love that failed. »

04 Jul 2010

London’s Manon: Diva and Divo Deliver

The Royal Opera's intriguingly staged Manon had all the trappings of success including a soprano at the top of her game, and a tenor on the brink of his fame.  »

02 Jul 2010

Picture Perfect — Plácido Domingo as Simon Boccanegra, Royal Opera

Plácido Domingo isn’t a tenor, a baritone or even a singer. He’s a phenomenon. Dozens stood by the stage door at the Royal Opera House to greet him with bouquets.  »

23 Jun 2010

Leipzig Opera to stage Gluck Ring

Richard Wagner’s 200th birthday is just around the corner in 2013 — and the composer was, after all, born in Leipzig. »

22 Jun 2010

Idomeneo at ENO

Mozart was reputedly more attached to this musical drama of hubris and honour set during the Trojan War than to any other of his stage works. »

21 Jun 2010

Anne Schwanewilms in Recital at Wigmore Hall

This recital was the last in a series of five put together by Roger Vignoles to celebrate the lieder of Richard Strauss — a series which, comprising 85 of Strauss’ songs, has highlighted the composer’s role as heir to the nineteenth-century German lieder masters and reminded us of the ravishing beauty and varied emotional range of these unjustly neglected songs. »

21 Jun 2010

Night Music Magic 'n' More in St. Louis

With Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ stunning A Little Night Music, at long last we have been treated to a multi-faceted production that not only equals, but in many ways surpasses the dazzling original. »

19 Jun 2010

Orpheus & Euridice at Long Beach Opera

Early Greek writings say that Orpheus was the son of the muse Calliope and either Apollo, the god of prophecy and music or Oeagrus, the river god.  »

18 Jun 2010

Revivals Sparkle in the City of Lights

Paris Opéra recently served up two past productions in vibrant performances that were fresh-as-new. »

10 Jun 2010

Musically Astute Armida, Garsington

Garsington has become a distinctive part of the English summer opera season. »