Reviews

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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05 Oct 2012

“Dreamers of Dreams”

During the years from 1890 to 1940, the so-called ‘land without music’ witnessed a remarkable outpouring of chamber and instrumental music.  »

05 Oct 2012

Mozart’s Ghost finds its Way through Das Labyrinth

W.A. Mozart, despite a historically antagonistic relationship with his city of birth, retains an omnipresence in Salzburg that emerges in full force with each iteration of the illustrious summer festival.  »

05 Oct 2012

Cecilia Bartoli Comes, Divides and Conquers

Cleopatra, one of few female seductresses in operatic history to emerge not only alive but empowered in the final act, is a fitting role for Cecilia Bartoli in her first season as artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.  »

04 Oct 2012

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Wigmore Hall

The Wigmore Hall 2012-3 season (see link below) started with a gala of glamour. Dmitri Hvorostovsky attracts patrons in jewels and designer gowns.  »

04 Oct 2012

Martinů : Julietta, ENO

The ENO gave the British premiere of Bohuslav Martinů's Julietta many years ago, so this new production was eagerly awaited. But what will audiences new to Martinů get from this production? It's a myth that the English language makes opera more accessible. That just means audiences focus on words, rather than really listening or understanding.  »

02 Oct 2012

Handel Jephtha, Welsh National Opera

Welsh National Opera have revived Katie Mitchell’s 2003 production of Handel’s Jephtha, with Robert Murray in the title role and a new focus for the drama.  »

28 Sep 2012

Rigoletto in San Francisco

Four Rigolettos in nine days (for this critic), of twelve Rigolettos in 24 days (are these world records?). »

28 Sep 2012

Nixon in China at the BBC Proms

John Adams’s Nixon in China has become one of the most successful operas in the late 20th/early 21st century wave of post-modernist attempts to revitalise the operatic tradition. It has even started its own sub-genre, the so-called CNN opera.  »

28 Sep 2012

Marriage of Figaro at the BBC Proms

Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s visit to the Proms has become a much anticipated annual event. This year on 28 August, they brought Michael Grandage’s new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Robin Ticciati, who takes over as musical director at Glyndebourne in 2014. »

28 Sep 2012

Peter Grimes BBC Prom 55

The ghost of Peter Pears may no longer hover in the wings, but in an age when ‘defining’ interpretations by the likes of Jon Vickers and Philip Langridge still linger powerfully in collective audience memories, Stuart Skelton’s interpretation of Crabbe’s problematic fisherman is assuming a striking individuality and impact.  »

27 Sep 2012

Santa Fe 2012

The venerable Santa Fe Opera served up a richly eclectic mix of high-caliber offerings that surely is one of their best festivals in recent seasons.  »

28 Aug 2012

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro 2012

Ciro in Babilonia Matilda di Shaban and Il signor Bruschino in Rossini land. »

28 Aug 2012

La bohème at the Salzburg Festival

It is difficult to speak with excessive enthusiasm of the programming of a Salzburg Festival that included both Carmen and La bohème, though it would subsequently be redeemed in part by a staging of Die Soldaten.  »

24 Aug 2012

Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul

Eternal Echoes is an album of khazones [Jewish cantorial music] for cantorial soloist, solo violin and a blended instrumental ensemble comprising a small orchestra and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.  »

24 Aug 2012

James MacMillan’s “Since it was the day of Preparation…” Premieres at Edinburgh International Festival

It was fitting that in this Year of Creative Scotland, the Edinburgh International Festival should honour James MacMillan’s contribution to Scottish musical life with the premiere of a new work. »

20 Aug 2012

Glimmerglass Gambles and Wins

Impresaria Francesca Zambello kept up her seemingly tireless process of rejuvenating the Glimmerglass Opera Festival with an ambitious, nay downright risky repertoire choice.  »

20 Aug 2012

Ariadne auf Naxos, Salzburg Festspiele

When announced in November, this was trailed as the original version of Ariadne auf Naxos, a rare treat indeed.  »

20 Aug 2012

Berlioz and Liszt at the Salzburg Festival

At the Salzburg Festival, Riccardo Muiti conducted Liszt’s Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe and Berlioz’s Messe solonnelle. »

14 Aug 2012

Mahler: Symphony no. 3 / Kindertotenlieder

Michael Tilson Thomas’s recording of Mahler’s Third Symphony is an outstanding contribution to the composer’s discography.  »

14 Aug 2012

Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder — BBC Proms 2012

Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder is conceived as cosmic panorama. King Waldemar curses God and is himself cursed, doomed to ride the skies forever, inspiring awe and horror.  »

13 Aug 2012

Berlioz’s Requiem (Grande messe des morts) — BBC Prom 39

The massed forces of the 600+ singers and players assembled for this exciting performance of Berlioz’s gargantuan Requiem (Grande messe des morts) made for an impressive visual spectacle in the vast high Victorian Royal Albert Hall.  »

12 Aug 2012

The Makropulos Case at Edinburgh International Festival

The Edinburgh International Festival, in partnership with Opera North, presented Janáček’s The Makropulos Case at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre. »

11 Aug 2012

Edinburgh International Festival - Delius, A Mass of Life

The Edinburgh International Festival got off to a rousing start with Frederick Delius, A Mass of Life, rarely heard because it's scored for huge forces.  »

10 Aug 2012

Oliver Knussen’s Symphonies from NMC

Oliver Knussen burst into British music with an unprecedented flourish. In 1967, the London Symphony Orchestra premiered Knussen’s First Symphony, with István Kertész scheduled to conduct.  »

05 Aug 2012

Glyndebourne : Ravel Double Bill L'enfant et les sortilèges, L'heure espagnole

Surrealist fantasy with wit and style! L'heure espagnole and L'enfant et les sortilèges, the Ravel Double Bill at Glyndebourne, mixes charm, intelligence and nightmare. »

03 Aug 2012

Bach Mass in B minor, BBC Prom 26

Bach probably never intended the full Mass in B Minor to be performed, so it is tricky to talk about what forces he meant it to be performed by. But the Kyrie and Gloria certainly were sent by Bach to the Royal Court at Dresden (which was Roman Catholic), and these movements could be used in the Lutheran Church as well.  »

02 Aug 2012

Tippett : A Child of Our Time BBC Prom 25

In November 1938 a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynsban, driven to desperation and despair by the Nazi persecution of his mother, shot a minor German diplomat in Paris. The Nazis retaliated with one of the most savage, vicious pogroms experienced up to that time. A Child of our Time, composed during 1938-41, was Michael Tippett’s musical response to this contemporary tragedy and his attempt to comprehend its universal and eternal relevance.  »

02 Aug 2012

Santa Fe Opera convinces : Rossini Maometto II

Santa Fe, NM : It is not unusual for Santa Fe Opera to produce little known or rarely heard operas in their enduring devotion to both unusual and ‘lost’ repertory, as well as commissioned and contemporary works. But is it unusual - very - for two such mountings in one season to be smash hits. Santa Fe lately enjoyed two such successes, graced by elevated musical and performance quality, and strong audience acceptance.  »

02 Aug 2012

Santa Fe Opera, Karol Szymanowski : King Roger

The gifted Polish composer Karol Szymanowski wrote his three-act King Roger, in the 1920's. It is an allegorical tale of honor vs. pleasure set to quite beautiful music, especially in the orchestral writing, which Santa Fe chose to play in the same season as the Rossini in a wide tip of the hat to unknown but worthy repertory.  »

01 Aug 2012

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Opera Holland Park, London

This was unquestionably the best all-round performance I have yet seen from Opera Holland Park, staging and musical performances alike often putting august metropolitan houses from around the world to shame.  »

30 Jul 2012

Exquisite Juxtapositions : Ian Bostridge, Wigmore Hall

Although John Cage’s Seven Haiku for piano are all about chance and accident, this final concert in Ian Bostridge’s Ancient and Modern series was a masterpiece of meticulous planning and execution. »

30 Jul 2012

Beethoven Ninth Symphony, Daniel Barenboim, BBC Prom 18

Few composers seem as remote and yet as necessary to our age as Beethoven, and perhaps the symphonic Beethoven in particular. Irony is a foreign word to him; blazing affirmation and indeed intensity of struggle seem too much for us.  »

27 Jul 2012

Pierre Boulez : Le marteau sans maître BBC Proms

Pierre Boulez Le marteau sans maître is important as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, says conductor François-Xavier Roth, who conducted it with members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in BBC Prom 17.  »

23 Jul 2012

Hector Berlioz, Les Troyens (concert performance, BBC Proms)

Hearing The Trojans in concert at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Proms was, for me at least, a much happier experience than when it laboured under the crowd-pleasing would-be-musical-comedy served up by David McVicar’s production for the Royal Opera. »

22 Jul 2012

Verdi Falstaff Opera Holland Park

“It is as sunny as the composer’s garden at Busetto, clear as crystal in construction, tender and explosive by turns, humorous and witty without a touch of extravagance or a note of vulgarity.” So wrote Charles Stanford on the occasion of the first performance of Verdi’s final opera, in 1893. »

20 Jul 2012

Rossini Il viaggio a Reims, Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artists programme is celebrating the 10th anniversary of their annual Summer Performance.  »

19 Jul 2012

David et Jonathas at the Aix Festival

Rare, very rare repertory that is not even opera stole the show at the sixty fourth Aix Festival. »

18 Jul 2012

Le Nozze di Figaro in Aix-en-Provence

You pay your money, you takes your chances — that is festival life at its best. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t. The fun is in the risk, so the riskier the better.  »

18 Jul 2012

Christoph Prégardien, Wigmore Hall

Seriousness, elegance and insight characterised this recital of nineteenth-century German song in which Christoph Prégardien and his accompanist, Julius Drake, conducted a moving musical dialogue, perfectly matching each other in the depiction of unbending obsession and unfulfilled aspiration. »

17 Jul 2012

BBC Prom 3: Pelléas et Mélisande

21st-century opera played on period instruments; a ‘drama-less’ opera; a Dali-esque crimson chaise longue, stranded on the platform of the Royal Albert Hall.  »

15 Jul 2012

Otello, Royal Opera

Elijah Moshinsky’s Otello, first seen at Covent Garden in 1987, and revived numerous times with a range of stellar casts, may be traditional and conservative, even — excepting the thunderous opening storm scene — somewhat uninventive;  »

11 Jul 2012

Triple Delights in the City of Light

Paris Opéra seems to have saved the best for last as they wind up the current season with a trio of diverse and well-judged productions. »

09 Jul 2012

Written on Skin at the Aix Festival

Not about tattoo art, not an evocation of the Holocast, and let us not even try to put our finger on what it is about. »

09 Jul 2012

‘Ancient & Modern’ with Angelika Kirchschlager and Ian Bostridge

Ian Bostridge’s thought-provoking ‘Ancient and Modern’ project at the Wigmore Hall is drawing to a close and this penultimate instalment brought together Renaissance sensuality and Neo-classical restraint in a meticulously executed performance.  »