Opera
David Nice
It's time again for surrealist charades at the nothing-doing mansion. Christopher Alden's Handel is back at ENO, making inconsequentiality seem wondrous. Christian Curnyn's conducting sets the tone, with orchestral playing as light as air, and a new cast – with one singer from the previous set switching roles – conceals its art behind what seems like the easiest and most organic of singing and acting.What a relief it is after aimless shenanigans over at the Royal Opera to return to a production that's so sure- (and light-) footed. No one should grumble about the frivolous setting Read more ...
David Nice
Recent British-based productions have taken Wagner's paean to creativity, the reconciliation of tradition and the individual talent, at face value. Graham Vick's long-serving Covent Garden colourfest, with its brilliant staging of the night brawl; David McVicar's sunny Biedermeier celebration at Glyndebourne; best of all, Richard Jones, making Wagner's immaculate all-about-art proposals crystal clear first for Welsh and then for English National Operas: all three have had their share of joy and lightness. Not so Kasper Holten's semi-mess of a show, which is nothing to laugh about at any point Read more ...
David Nice
After a Royal Opera performance of Birtwistle's The Minotaur, a friend spotted Hans Werner Henze in the foyer and had the temerity to ask that annoying question "What did you think?" "Very competent and extremely well performed," came the reply. Which is the measure of Ryan Wigglesworth's Shakespeare adaptation at ENO. Every UK premiere of a new British opera can be sure of one thing - a first-rate cast of English-speaking singers. Perhaps the real surprise here was the debut of that great actor Rory Kinnear as a director: clear and sure-footed throughout.Clarity is a quality, too, of Read more ...
graham.rickson
Opera North’s updated version of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel takes place in what looks like a down-at-heel Leeds housing estate, the titular siblings shown filming the story using simple domestic props and back projections. Quite how the impoverished pair have acquired a high-end video camera isn’t made clear; presumably the assorted boxes of Christmas decorations scattered around Giles Cadel’s spare set fell off the back of the same lorry. This Hansel and Gretel is overstuffed with musical delights, but Edward Dick’s production often wilfully obscures and complicates what should be an Read more ...
Richard Bratby
“Who says Mozart is not like Rossini?” remarked Juan Diego Flórez, about a quarter of an hour into his debut recital at Symphony Hall. “There are seven high Cs in this aria.” And with a flicker of notes from the pianist Vincenzo Scalera, he was off into "Vado incontro", from Mitridate by the 14-year old Mozart. He wasn’t joking, either. You could count each of those Cs as they burst – the ultimate sonic weapon in the arsenal of the superstar tenor.There was no question of them sounding unforced; perhaps, no possibility. Phrasing went by the board as one after another they flashed out. The Read more ...
stephen.walsh
Wagner’s Tristan left a huge mark on fin de siècle art, on the symbolist poets, even on their pseudonyms; Debussy himself toyed with a four-act opera on the subject. And his version, if he had ever composed it, would have been an intriguing precedent for the Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Le Vin herbé (The Drugged Wine), since both are, or would have been, derived from the same source, Joseph Bédier’s turn-of-the-century novel, Le Roman de Tristan et Isaut, a much more detailed and anecdotal conflation of the various medieval legends than Wagner’s.Martin’s so-called Oratorio profane (1938-41) Read more ...
theartsdesk
Love is in the air. Today, men and women and boys and girls will be pondering how to say it with roses and cards and candlelit dinners: those three words that contain multitudes. As the old strip cartoon never quite got round to saying, love is... the human condition, which is why a good quantity of the culture we review on this site has to do with it. To help you get into the mood for romancing, we have asked our writers to identify something - anything - in the arts that embodies the L word. There are some obvious choices, some obscure ones, and a whole lot of omissions. So, in the comment Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Jonas Kaufmann’s legion of admirers could rest content. A well-received Lieder evening last week demonstrated that the world’s hottest tenor property had returned, both to London for a three-concert residency at the Barbican, and indeed to singing after burst blood vessels had forced several months of rest and cancelled concerts.A welcoming party duly cheered away before he had sung a note of the Wesendonck-Lieder. They had to wait until two lines of the fourth song before savouring the peculiar joys of Kaufmann’s voice at full throttle – appropriately enough, on the phrase "Glory of the Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Adriana Lecouvreur deserves to be better known. The opera has a toe-hold in the repertoire, with occasional appearances, usually as a showcase for the soprano in the title role. Its composer, Francesco Cilea, is known for little else, but the opera demonstrates an impressive melodic gift, an ear for orchestral colour, and a rare ability to pace music in step with a complex and extended narrative.This production, directed by David McVicar and with sets by Charles Edwards, was first staged in 2010 and is returning to Covent Garden for a first revival. It is a spectacular affair, if Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
This was supposed to be a triumphant return – one final encore for the production so good that audiences just couldn’t let it go. Instead, this 13th revival of Jonathan Miller’s Mafia Rigoletto seems like an apology. The designs are handsome as ever, the concept as neat, but the details of both direction and music are so scrappy and scattered that the show feels more like a basement clear-out than a loving restoration. Raw, gritty brass launched the Prelude harshly on opening night, setting the tone for an evening where beauty was consistently the last, rather than then first, Read more ...
David Nice
Late January, and the soul longs for winter's end. Which is why Rimsky-Korsakov's bittersweet fairy story about the fragile daughter of Spring and Frost whose heart will melt when she discovers true love, allowing the sun to bring back warmth to earth, is so apt. Unfortunately the time of year is also one for striking singers down, so we missed two of the principals on Saturday night. The good news: their covers were fine enough to carry the charm of director John Fulljames's mostly magical storytelling.It's not easy, given the plot's meanderings, even with major cuts that lop off some of Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
To judge from the hype in advance of this production, you’d think it must be a premiere. In fact Philip Glass’s dance-opera hybrid, written in 1996 and based on Jean Cocteau’s 1950 screenplay, received its first London performance at the Arcola Theatre six years ago. What’s new in this presentation, timed to straddle the Barbican’s “Glass at 80” birthday weekend, is that the work has now passed through yet another extraordinary imagination, that of the choreographer Javier de Frutos. Given his history as a provocateur on stage and off, he has been something of an enfant terrible himself.Yet Read more ...