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. »

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28 Mar 2010

Angels in America, Eötvös at the Barbican for the BBC

Angels in America, Peter Eötvös’s opera based on the Tony Kushner plays, received its London premiere. This was very high profile. David Robertson conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a performance that will be broadcast internationally, online on www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.  »

26 Mar 2010

L’Etoile, NYCO

Mark Lamos’ production of Chabrier’s L’Etoile is perfectly ridiculous.  »

23 Mar 2010

Genoveva — Schumann at UCL Opera, London

Genoveva and Lohengrin both premiered in the summer of 1850. Wagner disparaged Schumann, as he disparaged Mendelssohn (Schumann’s hero). Wagner’s opinions were influential. Genoveva has been eclipsed, saddled with a reputation for being hard to stage. »

22 Mar 2010

Regieoper with a twist in Dresden Ring

Yes, the complete Ring des Nibelungen currently on stage at Dresden’s Semper Opera qualifies as Regieoper, but it’s Regieoper with a twist.  »

22 Mar 2010

Changing conductors bring color to Dresden Ring

It was a bit of intrigue that recalled the Wagners at home back in Bayreuth’s Haus Wahnfried. »

21 Mar 2010

The Cunning Little Vixen, London

An enchanting evening at Covent Garden:  »

17 Mar 2010

Les Troyens at Carnegie Hall

Les Troyens is the noblest grand opera ever composed by a Frenchman, one of those desert-island works of which it is impossible to tire because its depths can never be completely sounded.  »

17 Mar 2010

Concert of Arias by Arizona Opera

Advertised as ‘ A night of powerful music with today’s superstars,’ Arizona Opera’s concert of opera arias definitely lived up to those words.  »

17 Mar 2010

Katya Kabanova, London

Anguished, lacerating, irredeemably tragic, David Alden’s new production of Katya Kabanova presents a drama of unalleviated suffering and unremitting bleakness.  »

17 Mar 2010

Philip Glass: Satyagraha, ENO, London 2010

Philip Glass's Satyagraha at the English National Opera, at the Coliseum, London, proves that modern minimalism can be extraordinarily moving. The secret is to open your soul, as Gandhi did, when he searched the Baghavad-Gita for inspiration.  »

15 Mar 2010

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by ETO

A silvery tree stretched its gnarled branches across the moonlit stage, and from the briar and bush spiky, feathered fairies wriggled and crept, intent on mischief and malevolence.  »

12 Mar 2010

The Nose, New York

When the orchestra re-tuned itself between the intermissionless acts of the Met premiere of The Nose last week, many in the audience were uncertain whether they were hearing practice or prelude.  »

11 Mar 2010

Verdi’s Attila, New York

The curtain rises on an enormous pile of crumbling reinforced concrete, broken wires sticking out every which way – an image that has replaced (at least in the minds of set designers) the romantic columned or castellated ruins that thrilled our ancestors, especially around the time, 1846, that Verdi composed Attila. »

09 Mar 2010

The Elixir of Love at ENO

As a medic with a keen knowledge of psychology, Jonathan Miller probably knows a thing or two about elixirs and placebos.  »

09 Mar 2010

The Gambler, London

The global credit crunch, with its painful exposure of the moral and literal bankruptcy of our own age, provides the perfect backdrop for this new production of Prokofiev’s The Gambler, the first ever staging of this opera at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.  »

08 Mar 2010

Love Triumphs in L’Elisir d’amore at Lyric Opera of Chicago

In its current revival of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production showcases the strengths and foibles of humanity, while assuring the ultimate triumph of love. »

08 Mar 2010

Brilliant Schubert programme: Matthias Goerne, Wigmore Hall

This second of two recitals of Schubert songs by Matthias Goerne and Helmut Deutsch at the Wigmore Hall, London was superb, the programme created with exceptional intelligence and insight into the inner dynamics of Schubert’s music.  »

08 Mar 2010

Tamerlano: Handel at the Royal Opera House, London

Handel’s Tamerlano, in the production by Graham Vick, is well known, but its run at the Royal Opera House is unusual because many of the cast are creating the roles for the first time. It isn't a live reprise of the DVD, but more challenging. »

05 Mar 2010

Karlsruhe: Rare Verdi, Well Done

The Baden State Theatre's new mounting of I Masnadieri may not completely be the production of one’s dreams. »

05 Mar 2010

Matthias Goerne at Wigmore Hall, London

In this, the first of two recitals with pianist Helmut Deutsch, baritone Matthias Goerne continued his very personal journey through the landscape of Schubert’s lieder, a passage which is currently being preserved on an outstanding series of discs by Harmonia Mundi.  »

05 Mar 2010

Ariadne auf Naxos, New York

As the first familiar themes of Ariadne came from the pit, I felt myself sinking — sinking from a tense, dreary, daily world into a sort of ecstatic fantasy — a place where all was happy, funny, romantic, inane, fateful and surprising all at once — Sarah Connolly superb, Kathleen Kim charming, Nina Stemme full-throated,  »

04 Mar 2010

Zürich mal Zwei

Zürich Opera’s poster for their new production of Idomeneo is a knockout. »

11 Feb 2010

Armide by Opera Lafayette

Gluck’s Armide, as semi-staged (costumed dancers but no scenery) at the Rose Theater by the Washington-based Opera Lafayette, was exactly what Gluck designed the piece to be: a supremely elegant entertainment. »

07 Feb 2010

Donizetti revealed: Lucia di Lammermoor, ENO, London

Donizetti’s original concept of Lucia di Lammermoor is revealed in its true glory in this ground breaking production by the English National Opera, first heard in 2008. The opera is loved in its familiar form, but the new critical edition reveals the depth of Donizetti’s musical creation. »

04 Feb 2010

Heidelberg’s Stumbling Spartaco at Schwetzingen Castle

For those who might be seeking a representational tale of the legendary Roman slave Spartacus, well, Gladiator this ain’t. »

02 Feb 2010

Così fan tutte, Covent Garden

First seen in 1995, and here receiving its seventh revival, Jonathan Miller’s Così fan tutte has lost none of its power to unsettle and discomfort.  »

02 Feb 2010

Shohat’s The Child Dreams — A mature work

Gil Shohat, now 35 and Israeli’s top classical composer, was 15 when in the ‘80s he saw Hanoch Levin’s The Child Dream on stage in his native Tel Aviv. Shohat, of course, knew Levin’s work well, for throughout early decades in the history of Israel he — its outstanding dramatist — had served somewhat as the conscience of a nation tormented defining itself within its pain-wrought beginnings.  »

01 Feb 2010

Joyce DiDonato, Wigmore Hall

The Wigmore Hall was bursting its seams in excited anticipation of this recital by the American mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato.  »

29 Jan 2010

Lyric Opera of Chicago’s The Merry Widow

Melodic and scenic gaiety predominates in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s new production of Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow.  »

25 Jan 2010

London’s Rambunctious Rake

Covent Garden has revived director Robert Lepage’s popular and well-traveled version of The Rake’s Progress with often thrilling results. »

22 Jan 2010

Il Mondo della Luna (The World on the Moon)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, around 1777, the Empress Maria Theresa used to visit Prince Esterhazy’s summer palace at Esterhàza, where there was an opera house fully equipped with stage machinery, leading singers, an orchestra, and a guy named Joseph Haydn to compose on cue.  »

18 Jan 2010

Stiffelio at the MET

Stiffelio was composed just after Luisa Miller — an opera that has had little trouble holding its own in the repertory — and just before the magic trio of Rigoletto, Trovatore and Traviata, the first Verdi operas to take their immediate place on the stages of the world and hold them without a break from that day to this.  »

18 Jan 2010

Phaedra at the Barbican

Most musical of mourners, weep anew! Not all to that bright station dared to climb And happier they their happiness who knew Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time »

18 Jan 2010

Elektra at the Barbican

Concert performances of operas are often problematic in that the work tends to be cut or otherwise played around with, or the venue is inappropriate - after all, these were meant to be staged pieces. »

17 Jan 2010

Carmen at the MET

Elina Garanča conceals her gleaming gold tresses beneath a curly black wig to sing Carmen.  »

08 Jan 2010

Quality opera just round the corner

Well into the 1960s, ‘provincial theaters’ were the backbone of Italy’s operatic culture.  »

29 Dec 2009

58th Wexford Festival Opera

David Agler must be feeling a trifle unlucky. Having in 2005 taken over the reins of a flourishing, internationally renowned opera festival, with a stylish new opera house in the planning and the Irish economy booming, his hopes must been high; but in the event the Canadian’s first few years as Artistic Director of the Wexford Festival Opera have been far from plain-sailing.  »

18 Dec 2009

Elektra at the Met

The roles Richard Strauss composed for his “chorus” of Five Serving Maids in Elektra — all that remains in the opera of the commentator chorus in Sophocles’ tragedy — are short but arduous. »

18 Dec 2009

Ernani: The Case for Early Verdi at Lyric Opera of Chicago

Productions of Giuseppe Verdi’s early opera Ernani have become relatively infrequent primarily because of the difficulties of casting the work requiring four demanding roles.  »

18 Dec 2009

Sergei Leiferkus at Wigmore Hall

Exchanging the stage of The Royal Opera House — where he is currently performing the role of His Highness in Tchaikovsky’s fairy-tale opera, The Tsarina's Slippers —  »

18 Dec 2009

Frankfurt’s ‘Medium’ Rarities

Encountering Frankfurt Opera’s staging of Leoni’s L’Oracolo and Puccini’s Le Villi, I was reminded of that old saw about the German weather. »

18 Dec 2009

Amsterdam: Minnie, Get Your Gun

It is hard to know where to start to adequately laud Netherlands Opera’s witty new La Fanciulla del West. »

18 Dec 2009

Pénélope in Manhattan

The one thing certain about the judgment of history is that history will change its mind.  »

15 Dec 2009

Zürich’s Riveting ‘Corsaro’

Il Corsaro, the Verdi rarity currently on display at Zürich Opera, is the best of both possible worlds. »

11 Dec 2009

Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the MET

The Tales of Hoffmann is a cruel piece, for all the wit of the macabre tales on which it is based and the sparkle the dying Offenbach put into his last and grandest score.  »

11 Dec 2009

A Streetcar Named Desire at Opera Australia

Musically, Australia looks to Britain and Europe, especially for its operatic diet and America’s considerable operatic output has been overlooked.  »

10 Dec 2009

Der Rosenkavalier - Royal Opera House, London

In dark, damp December we need good cheer, and Der Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera House, delivers colour and spectacle. in abundance. It's a revival of the John Schlesinger production from 1884, and somewhat antiquated, but that's no disadvantage, for the passage of time haunts Der Rosenkavalier.  »

08 Dec 2009

Tchaikovsky’s Sure-Footed ‘Slippers’

Spearheaded by a stunning design concept for The Tsarina’s Slippers, London’s Covent Garden served up as delectable a production as could be desired, and introduced its lucky patrons to a jewel of an under-performed comic opera in the bargain. »

06 Dec 2009

A Faust of Distinction at Lyric Opera of Chicago

For its second production of the 2009-10 season Lyric Opera of Chicago staged a revival of Charles Gounod’s Faust, last seen here in 2003-04.  »