Opera Reviews
Katya Kabanova, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - living every bar of Janáček’s tragedyThursday, 12 January 2023
Amanda Majeski pushed the boundaries as Janáček's tormented heroine for director Richard Jones at the Royal Opera. Here there were confines – no “concert staging” this, but a laissez-faire affair with scores and music stands, occasionally obscuring the stage directions – but she still conveyed the essence in front of Simon Rattle’s throbbing, luminous London Symphony Orchestra and flanked by other cast members of uniform excellence. Read more... |
Best of 2022: OperaMonday, 26 December 2022![]()
Looking through everything we’ve covered this year – and some of our reviewers have made their choices from an even wider sphere – I find, as in 2021, that the abundance of classical-concert top choices is richer than the number of truly outstanding opera productions. Personally, I’ve seen only three performances in the UK that ticked all boxes (production, singing, conducting, top quality work) and three abroad, despite limited travel. Read more... |
Die Zauberflöte, Royal Opera review - classic show but disappointing conductorSaturday, 17 December 2022![]()
“The great thing about this production,” Colin Davis observed in 2003, during rehearsals for its very first run, “is that the director [David McVicar] hasn’t attempted to shock anybody. He has tried to tell the story of The Magic Flute. And thank God for that.” Read more... |
Die Fledermaus, RNCM, Manchester review - a champagne cork-popping celebrationWednesday, 14 December 2022![]()
The Royal Northern College of Music is in the mood for celebration. Its 50 years of existence warrants popping the champagne corks big-time, so for its end-of-year operatic production Die Fledermaus is just what the doctor ordered. Read more... |
Don Pasquale, Irish National Opera review - stock comedy shines at close quartersMonday, 12 December 2022![]()
Only a group of top musicians stood, or mostly sat, between a full but necessarily small house and Dr Malatesta’s Plastic Surgery Clinic in the bijou surroundings of Dun Laoghaire’s 324-seater Pavilion Theatre. Read more... |
It’s a Wonderful Life, English National Opera review - Capra’s sharp-edged sentiment smothered in endless schmaltzSaturday, 26 November 2022![]()
Looking for a sparkly operatic musical, well sung and played, slick and saturated in a range of mainstream styles that stop short in the year the movie masterpiece It’s a Wonderful Life was released, 1946? Then Jake Heggie’s 2016 confection may be for you. One thing’s for sure, though: it may be trying to do something different from the Capra classic, and it’s welcome to have the Bailey family as African Americans, but this isn't a patch on the rather more layered film. Read more... |
The Rake's Progress, Royal Academy of Music review - Hogarth's Rake enters the digital ageWednesday, 23 November 2022![]()
Paris, Vienna, Rome – all have their operatic homages. But London (and I mean real London, not the slightly-grey Italy of Donizetti’s Tudor Queens) only rarely makes it into the opera house. Curiously, on the rare occasions it does, it’s the seedy side of things that’s very much at the fore in The Beggar’s Opera and, of course, the Hogarth-inspired The Rake’s Progress. Read more... |
Alcina, Royal Opera review - sharp stage magic, mist over the pitWednesday, 09 November 2022![]()
Handel’s audiences must have taken a very long time to settle – at least an act, to judge from the mostly inconsequential music of Alcina’s first hour. Lovely: we’re on an enchanted isle where puritanical people have been transformed into animal-headed courtiers, and a love-imbroglio merits only a “so what?” Richard Jones and his singers keep it lively and focused, but the bounce needed from Christian Curnyn and the Royal Opera House Orchestra doesn’t come. Read more... |
The Yeomen of the Guard, English National Opera review - half-good shot at an unusual G&S misallianceFriday, 04 November 2022![]()
Sullivan’s Overture to The Yeomen of the Guard isn’t quite the equal of Wagner’s Prelude to Die Meistersinger – what is? – but its brass-rich brilliance and wholesome ceremonials wouldn’t have been possible without that great example. Read more... |
Ainadamar, Scottish Opera/Opera Ventures review - worlds collide in fiery fusionFriday, 04 November 2022
Ainadamar - meaning "fountain of tears" in Arabic – is the name given to a natural spring high in the hills above the Andalucian city of Granada, the site where the poet and playwright Federico Garica Lorca was executed in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes may have been steering the good ship Primal Scream for some 40 years but, on the evidence of this week’s visit to...

VINYL OF THE MONTH
Rattle Encircle (Upset! The Rhythm)
...

The title of Marcus Brigstocke’s latest show, Vitruvian Mango, is, like the man himself, rather clever. He appears on stage...

Patrick McGilligan’s biography of Woody Allen weighs in at...

Black Country, New Road’s Forever Howlong is an ambitious reinvention that both captivates and, at times, frustrates. Following Isaac...

Emotions run high at WNO these days. When the company’s co-...

I can’t hear Joan Armatrading without being instantly transported back to Liverpool, and my student digs just around the corner from Penny Lane. I...

When Vladimir Jurowski returns to what used to be “his” London Philharmonic Orchestra, you’d better jump. I would have done on Wednesday had I...

The sax-player Kenny Garrett established a reputation as one of Miles Davis’s band in the Amandla (1989) period. He was also a member of...