Opera Reviews
Iphigénie en Tauride, English Touring OperaSunday, 06 March 2016
Gluck's two operas about the daughter of Agamemnon saved from sacrifice only to serve as priestess-butcher herself have found their level on the contemporary operatic stage. Read more... |
Akhnaten, English National OperaSaturday, 05 March 2016
What a load of balls. No, seriously. Globes, orbs, moons, suns, juggling balls, beach balls, er balls balls: if it’s spherical and pregnant with symbolism then you’re bound to find it somewhere on the props table for English National Opera’s Akhnaten. At the centre of Phelim McDermott’s new production of Philip Glass’s opera is a troupe of jugglers. Read more... |
Orlando, The English Concert, Bicket, BarbicanWednesday, 02 March 2016
Anyone who says Handel can’t do psychology should spend an evening with Orlando. Form, orchestration, even exit conventions are all reinvented or cast aside for a work of startlingly contemporary fluidity, where music is completely the servant of drama. Read more... |
Nothing, Glyndebourne Youth OperaSaturday, 27 February 2016
Brand-new youth operas tend to fall into two types. One is hugely rewarding for the participants, a skill learned and a treasurable group experience to be remembered for the rest of their lives, as well as for their friends and family in the audience. Read more... |
Il Trittico, Royal OperaFriday, 26 February 2016
From working-class hell via convent purgatory to Florentine comic heaven, the riches of Puccini's most comprehensive masterpiece seem inexhaustible. In a production as detailed in its balance between the stylised and the seemingly spontaneous as Richard Jones's, first seen in 2011, there are always going to be new connections between the three operas to discover. Read more... |
Figaro Gets a Divorce, Welsh National OperaMonday, 22 February 2016
The third of Beaumarchais’s Figaro plays, La Mère coupable, is a very different affair from the other two, in that it records actual adultery and its disastrous consequences (including Cherubino’s death in battle), as opposed to the largely comic innuendos and mistaken identities of The Barber and The Marriage. Read more... |
The Marriage of Figaro, Welsh National OperaFriday, 19 February 2016
From the more or less inconsequential wit and bravura of The Barber of Seville to the profound comic psychology, social nuances and unparalleled musical genius of The Marriage of Figaro, and from the silly antics of Sam Brown’s Rossini to the style and brilliant stage management of Tobias Richter’s Mozart, is a good lesson in music theatrical history played backwards. Read more... |
Ariodante, Scottish OperaFriday, 19 February 2016
In the end, it’s all about the oranges. They adorn the programme that accompanies Harry Fehr’s intelligent new production of Handel’s Ariodante for Scottish Opera. More importantly, they’re prominent in designer Yannis Thavoris’s clinical steel-and-glass set, growing on carefully groomed bushes in six neat tubs, placed meticulously below warming light bulbs, protected from the gales and snow drifts outside by a wall of glass. Read more... |
Norma, English National OperaThursday, 18 February 2016
In the light of what follows, it's probably best to be clear that I'm completely behind the artistic side of ENO in rejecting a 25 per cent reduction of the chorus's annual salary, tied to a shorter season. A full-time chorus of this size is the heart of a big company – without it, no Mastersingers, no Grimes, no Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Read more... |
Dido and Aeneas, Armonico Consort, Theatre Severn, ShrewsburyMonday, 15 February 2016
Spoiler Alert. It’s Act Three of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. The witches have done their worst, Aeneas is about to take ship, and the tenor Guy Simcock steps forward as the drunken sailor to sing what – as music director Christopher Monks has confided to us before the overture – will be his first solo role with Armonico Consort. Read more... |
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