Opera Interviews
theartsdesk Q&A: bass-baritone Christopher Purves on communicating everything from Handel to George BenjaminTuesday, 28 June 2022
He’s the most haunting, at times terrifying Wozzeck I’ve seen, in Richard Jones's Welsh National Opera baked-bean-factory production, and the funniest Falstaff. When we met in his dressing room at the Zurich Opera House, Christopher Purves was about to perform the central role of bitter and twisted Alberich in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and in a week’s time you can hear him singing Handel again, another speciality at the other end of the spectrum. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: soprano Elizabeth LlewellynWednesday, 12 February 2020
Could English National Opera be about to right the wrong done to a national treasure? Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Director Sir Jonathan MillerThursday, 28 November 2019
Doctor, writer, sculptor, curator, comedian, presenter and director, Sir Jonathan Miller (1934-2019) was one of the mighty cultural and intellectual omnivores of our age. |
theartsdesk Q&A: composer Alastair White on his new opera ROBEWednesday, 31 July 2019
A robe can be many things. Sure, it’s a garment, but it can also be cover, a disguise, a costume or a uniform. It’s also something composed of many different threads woven together to create something much bigger. It’s these kinds of layers of multiplicity which form the basis of the inspiration for Scottish composer Alastair White’s new opera, ROBE, premiering at this year’s Tête à Tête opera festival. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer, chansonnier and conductor HK Gruber at 75Thursday, 04 January 2018
You haven't lived until you've witnessed Viennese maverick H(einz) K(arl) Gruber – 75 today (3 January, publication day) – speech-singing, conducting and kazooing his way through his self-styled "pandemonium" Frankenstein!!. Read more... |
Robin Ticciati on conducting Mozart - 'I wanted to create a revolution in the minds of the players'Wednesday, 26 July 2017
When Glyndebourne's Music Director Robin Ticciati conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the new production of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito starting tonight, you can be sure that it will sound utterly fresh, startling even. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Soprano Aida GarifullinaSaturday, 27 May 2017
There are certain roles where you’re lucky to catch one perfect incarnation in a lifetime. I thought I'd never see a soprano as Natasha in Prokofiev's War and Peace equal to Yelena Prokina, Valery Gergiev’s choice for Graham Vick’s 1991 production. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Mezzo Anne Sofie von OtterSaturday, 12 November 2016
What's a world-renowned mezzo-soprano in her middle years to do? Slimline of voice, tall and handsome in person with piercing and slightly intimidating blue eyes, Stockholm-born Anne Sofie von Otter isn't likely to sing what is known in the operatic world as "all those old bag parts", though she's a good enough actress to have carried off a few. Read more... |
Save ENO: The Chorus SpeaksMonday, 14 March 2016
"Just listen". That's an imperative, of course, but it can be a very fair and reasonable one if the tone is right. It was Claudio Abbado's encouragement to his Lucerne Festival Orchestra players to make chamber music writ large. It also sounds persuasive and not at all militant coming from the mouths of ENO chorus members as their plea to the dramatic changes proposed by Chief Executive Officer Cressida Pollock, appointed a year ago. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Soprano Elizabeth WattsSunday, 08 November 2015
Not many people write conspicuously brilliant tweets, but Elizabeth Watts is someone who does. Working on the most demanding aria on her stunning new CD of operatic numbers and cantatas by the lesser-known of the two Scarlattis, father Alessandro rather than son Domenico, she tweeted: “Good news – I can sing 88 notes without a breath. Bad news – Scarlatti wrote 89.” Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Jonathan Pie, Duke of York's Theatre review - spoof pol...
If you don't like sweary comics – Jonathan Pie uses the c-word liberally – then this may not be the show for you. In fact if you're a Tory, ditto...
Baby Reindeer, Netflix review - a misery memoir disturbingly...
Richard Gadd won an Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2016 with...
Machinal, The Old Vic review - note-perfect pity and terror
Virtuosity and a wildly beating heart are compatible in Richard Jones’s finely calibrated production of Renaissance woman Sophie Treadwell’s ...
Fantastic Machine review - photography's story from one...
The first photograph was taken nearly 200 years ago in France by Joseph Niépce, and the first picture of a person was taken in Paris by Louis...
Simon Boccanegra, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester...
If ever more evidence were needed of Sir Mark Elder’s untiring zest for exploration and love of the thrill of live opera performance, it was this...
All You Need Is Death review - a future folk horror classic
Music, when the singer’s voice dies away, vibrates in the memory. In the hypnotic new Irish horror film All You Need Is Death, those who...
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Record Store Day Special 2024
Record Store Day is tomorrow! At theartsdesk on Vinyl...
If Only I Could Hibernate review - kids in grinding poverty...
Teenage Ulzii (Battsooj Uurtsaikh in an elegantly restrained performance) is looking after his little sister and brother in Ulaanbaatar after...
The Book of Clarence review - larky jaunt through biblical e...
The Book of Clarence comes lumbered with the charge of being the new Life of Brian, an irreverent spoof of the life...
Lisa Kaltenegger: Alien Earths review - a whole new world
Our home planet orbits the medium-size star we call the Sun. There are unfathomably many more stars out there. We accepted that these are also...