sat 15/02/2025

Opera reviews, news and interviews

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Theartsdesk

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic team of arts and culture writers went ahead with an ambitious plan – to launch a dedicated internet site devoted to coverage of the UK arts scene.

Festen, Royal Opera review - firing on every front

David Nice

So the Royal Opera had assembled a dream cast, conductor (Edward Gardner) and director (Richard Jones). The only question until last night was whether composer Mark-Anthony Turnage would be at his remarkable best. His operatic journey has been uneven, but one thing is now certain: adapting the first Dogme 95 movie, Festen by Thomas Vinterberg, so shocking at a time (1998) when the issue of child abuse rarely surfaced in drama, has yielded music theatre of flawless pace and range.

 

Phaedra + Minotaur, Royal Ballet and Opera,...

Jenny Gilbert

Greek myths are all over theatre stages at the moment, their fierce, vengeful stories offering unnerving parallels with events in our modern world....

The Marriage of Figaro, Welsh National Opera...

Stephen Walsh

Drained as they are at present of crucial funds, WNO are managing to put on only two operas this spring, and spaced out to the point where it could...

The Marriage of Figaro, English National Opera...

Alexandra Coghlan

Who’s in and who’s not – on the secret, the joke, the relationship, the family, the club? That’s the fulcrum of Joe Hill-Gibbins’ ingeniously simple...

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The Flying Dutchman, Opera North review - a director’s take on Wagner

Robert Beale

Annabel Arden offers the Great Disruptor as archetype of the stateless and voiceless

Love Life, Opera North review - Lerner and Weill's blast into the past

Robert Beale

Time-travelling tale of love and despair - the first 'concept musical' revived

Jenůfa, Royal Opera review - electrifying details undermined by dead space

David Nice

Knife-edge conducting and singing, but non-realistic production is weaker in revival

Best of 2024: Opera

David Nice

Comedy takes gold over a year rich in standout performance

La rondine, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - sumptuous orchestral playing in an underrated score

Alexandra Coghlan

Puccini's 100th anniversary celebrated in style

L’étoile, RNCM, Manchester review - lavish and cheerful absurdity

Robert Beale

Teamwork to the fore in a multi-credit operatic comedy

The Pirates of Penzance, English National Opera review - fresh energy in clear-sighted G&S

David Nice

Tenor lead shines, and conductor finds new beauties in Sullivan's score

Rigoletto, Irish National Opera / Murrihy, Collins, NCH Dublin review - greatness everywhere

David Nice

Sheer perfection in Soraya Mafi’s Gilda and an Irish mezzo’s Berlioz

The Elixir of Love, English National Opera review - a tale of two halves

David Nice

Flat first act, livelier second, singers not always helped by conductor and director

The Sound Voice Project, Linbury Theatre review - an art installation that has strayed into an opera house

Alexandra Coghlan

A worthy project fails to ignite as art

The Tales of Hoffmann, Royal Opera review - three-headed monster feels baggier than ever

David Nice

Offenbach left multiple choices for his swansong, but this production lacks the key

Rigoletto, English National Opera review - another hit for Miller's Mob

Boyd Tonkin

More tragic than gimmicky, this classic staging can still succeed

theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - let's make three operas

David Nice

Donizetti triumphs, with help from Bernstein, Rossini, two stars and director Orpha Phelan

Albert Herring, Scottish Opera review - fun, frivolity, and fine music-making

Miranda Heggie

A witty production of Britten's clever comedy that's bound to leave you smiling

Le nozze di Figaro, The Mozartists, Page, Cadogan Hall review - cogency, intelligence and reverence

Ed Vulliamy

A celebration of Mozart from the supreme stylists

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Opera North review - one of the best and funniest

Robert Beale

Perspex and bubblewrap for a Sixties take on Britten's Shakespeare

The Turn of the Screw, English National Opera review - Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved

David Nice

Pity and terror in Ailish Tynan’s anguished Governess and Isabella Bywater’s production

Trouble in Tahiti/A Quiet Place, Linbury Theatre review - top cast plays unhappy families

David Nice

Mini-masterpiece and splashy sequel carried off with as much conviction as they can take

Blond Eckbert, English Touring Opera review - dark deeds afoot in the woods

Bernard Hughes

Judith Weir’s chamber opera explores Freudian themes through a modern lens

The Marrriage of Figaro, Opera Project, Tobacco Factory, Bristol review - small is beautiful indeed

Mark Kidel

Mozart opera in the round delivers intimacy and joy

Béatrice et Bénédict, Irish National Opera, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - sung and spoken triumph

David Nice

Shakespeare from Fiona Shaw ballasts superbly performed Berlioz

Il trittico, Welsh National Opera review - welcome back (but not a good sign)

Stephen Walsh

Cast changes but no drop in quality

The Snowmaiden, English Touring Opera review - a rich harvest with modest means

Boyd Tonkin

Human warmth, and musical wealth, in Rimsky-Korsakov's fairy-tale

Suor Angelica, English National Opera review - isolated one-acter lacks emotional inscaping

David Nice

Annilese Miskimmon’s mix of nuns and girls in trouble isn’t new, and not intense enough

Footnote: a brief history of opera in Britain

Britain has world-class opera companies in the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera North, not to mention the celebrated country-house festival at Glyndebourne and others elsewhere. The first English opera was an experiment in 1656, as Civil War raged between Cromwell and Charles II, and it was under the restored king that theatre and opera exploded in London. Henry Purcell composed the masterpiece Dido and Aeneas (for a girls' school) and over the next century Handel, Gluck, J C Bach and Haydn came to London to compose Italian-style classical operas.

Hogarth_Beggars_Opera_1731_cTateHowever, the imported style was challenged by the startling success of John Gay's low-life street opera The Beggar's Opera (1728), a score collating 69 folk ballads, which set off a wave of indigenous popular musical theatre (pictured, William Hogarth's The Beggar's Opera, 1731, © Tate). Gay built the first Covent Garden opera house (1732), where three of Handel's operas were premiered, and musical theatre and vaudeville flourished as an alternative to opera. Through the 19th century, London became a hub for visiting composers and grand opera stars, but from the meshing of "high" and "popular" creativity at Sadler's Wells (built in 1765) evolved in time a distinct English tradition of wit and social satire in the "Savoy" operas of Gilbert and Sullivan.

In the 20th century Benjamin Britten's dramatic operas such as Peter Grimes and Billy Budd reflected a different sort of ordinariness, his genius driving the formation of the English Opera Group at Aldeburgh. English opera, and opera in English, became central to the establishment, after the Second World War, of a national arts infrastructure, with subsidised resident companies at English National Opera and the Royal Opera. By the 1950s, due to pressure from international opera stars refusing to learn roles in English, Covent Garden joined the circuit of major international houses, staging opera in their original languages, with visiting stars such as Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi and the young Luciano Pavarotti matched by home-grown ones like Joan Sutherland and Geraint Evans.

Today British opera thrives with a reputation for fresh thinking in classics, from new productions of Mozart, Verdi and Wagner landmarks to new opera commissions and popular arena stagings of Carmen. The Arts Desk brings you the fastest overnight reviews and the quickest ticket booking links for last night's openings, as well as the most thoughtful close-up interviews with major creative figures and performers. Our critics include Igor Toronyi-Lalic, David Nice, Edward Seckerson, Alexandra Coghlan, Graham Rickson and Ismene Brown.

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