Opera Reviews

The Emperor of Atlantis, Arcola Theatre

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Wednesday, 17 August 2011

Composer Viktor Ullmann's one talent was pastiche

We critics often find ourselves "embarrassed by historical facts", as Craig Raine once put it. Raine was trying to explain why so many people still value Wilfred Owen's poetry - to him, the most overrated corpus of the 20th century. "[Owen's] life and death as a soldier make literary criticism seem invalid and pedantic," he argued, before proceeding to a very validly pedantic demolition job. Music has its own Wilfred Owens. Viktor Ullmann is one. His reputation (which was showcased last...

Comment

The Turn of the Screw, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Ismene Brown Friday, 12 August 2011

Glyndebourne’s production of Benjamin Britten’s terrifying The Turn of the Screw is one that really does turn the screw tightly in the mind. It pierces time with its updating from its original Victorian setting to a bleak Fifties Britain, it tightens the tension with its wintry, claustrophic setting, and it delivers its questions into our suspicious, information-saturated modern heads with added twists. Given a magnificent musical and dramatic ensemble to interpret it in this...

Tannhäuser, Bayreuth Festival

stephen Walsh Tuesday, 02 August 2011

'Tannhäuser' at Bayreuth: replaces Wagner’s 13th-century troubadour castle on the Wartburg with an AVL biogas plant

In 1981, when I last came to Bayreuth, the festival still seemed to be a battleground between the German Left and Right, between the blame faction and the guilt faction, between the commie East and the fat-cat West. Plus ça change. Without quite openly taking sides, Sebastian Baumgarten’s new staging of Tannhäuser rings some cracked old political bells while, apparently with Bayreuth’s connivance, candidly parodying most of the thinking that underpins this admittedly...

La Bohème, The Village Underground

Charlotte Gardner Thursday, 28 July 2011

Vignette Productions' 'Boheme': 'The opening scene was about as far from your standard opera house as it would be possible to achieve'

Vignette Productions is a bit of a one-off in the operatic world. It was established three years ago by the rising young British tenor Andrew Staples, his mission to create operas that were more exciting and told better stories than those generally on offer. Staples directs rather than sings; his casts are made up of young unknown singers, and the productions to date certainly fulfil the original aim. Last year, their summer production of Cosi fan tutte had the audience sitting in...

Siegfried, Longborough Festival

stephen Walsh Tuesday, 26 July 2011

Longborough has its Mozart (this season a not wildly exciting Così fan tutte), and it has its Verdi (this year Falstaff). But its real heart is in Wagner...

Die Walküre: The Madness of an Extraordinary Plan, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

philip Radcliffe Sunday, 17 July 2011

In Act Zero of Manchester International Festival's 'Walküre', Wagner took to the stage himself

The Hallé Orchestra, enlarged for the occasion with harps, anvils, horns and such, was in its place on the platform. Sir Mark Elder made his entrance like a surgeon about to embark on a complex and energy-draining heart bypass operation. And the lights went out. On purpose. A spotlight picked up a man in a white shirt with long hair mounting the platform and making his way to a small...

BBC Proms: William Tell, Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Pappano

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Sunday, 17 July 2011

Rossini's William Tell has to be the most well-known unknown opera ever written. There's unlikely to be a man, woman or dog on the planet who can't whistle or bark a part of the overture. But the other four hours? What of that? One opera aficionado told me that the last time he'd heard the whole thing live, Winston Churchill was still in Number 10. Prommers were being given their first chance last night. It was hard not to come to it with trepidation.

Comment

The Sleeper, Welsh National Youth Opera, Cardiff

stephen Walsh Friday, 15 July 2011

The Sleeper and her insomniac fellow squatters in Stephen Deazley's new opera

“These premises have 24-hour security surveillance,” reads one of the notices on the wall as we audience traipsed round the outside of Cardiff’s Coal Exchange between stages of this mobile production of Stephen Deazley’s new opera about people who can’t sleep. It turned out to be the only poster that had nothing to do with the performance, in among the “Nobody Sleeps” signs, the “Keep Awake”s, the “No Beds” (or whatever: “Nessun dorma” I didn’t see or hear, but might have done; it...

Cendrillon, Royal Opera

David Nice Wednesday, 06 July 2011

After a heap of ashen revivals, it was time for the Royal Opera to take us to the ball in style. Which it does, for the most part. Of course, Massenet's "fairytale after Perrault" isn't Aida, Butterfly, Fidelio, Macbeth orTosca, all of which have deserved better from the house.

La Rondine, Opera Holland Park

alexandra Coghlan Wednesday, 06 July 2011

With opera houses in Britain now ringing to the four-letter cries of Anna Nicole and Two Boys (not to mention the rather more elderly, but no less explicit utterances of ...

Read more...