Opera Reviews
Acis and Galatea, Mid Wales Opera, CardiffFriday, 31 January 2014
Handel’s “little opera”, as he called Acis and Galatea when he was composing it in 1718, probably survived while his true, full-length operas vanished from sight precisely because it was little, compact and manageable, like Purcell’s Dido or Pergolesi’s Serva padrona. Read more... |
Peter Grimes, English National OperaThursday, 30 January 2014
“Mind that door.” With the hurricane howling outside it’s no wonder the locals gathered in Auntie’s pub are yelling... but there is no door. Instead, a stage-wide sheet of corrugated iron rears up to let in Stuart Skelton’s storm-tossed Peter Grimes. Enlarging naturalistic, close-up detail into full-blooded, expressionist drama is typical of this frankly electrifying revival of David Alden’s revelatory production of Britten’s masterpiece. Read more... |
The Girl of the Golden West, Opera NorthWednesday, 22 January 2014
Puccini’s unlikely Spaghetti Western still convinces in Aletta Collins’ vivid new production. The incongruities in this uneven yet powerful work aren’t dodged but embraced. Most of them are musical: the sheer delight, for instance, of seeing stage action which occasionally resembles a jerky early Western played out to rich, blazing orchestral sonorities. Read more... |
Manon, Royal OperaWednesday, 15 January 2014
Massenet had just two lingering thoughts about Manon when he wrote his memoirs in 1910, a quarter-century after the opera's first performance. First, he enjoyed reminding himself how many times it had been performed (a staggering 763 by the time he finished the memoirs). Read more... |
Sonia Prina, Wigmore HallTuesday, 31 December 2013
The great Marilyn Horne used to joke that she was going to release an album entitled “Chestnuts for Chest Nuts”. She never did, but that leaves the door wide open for Sonia Prina whose dark, thrillingly low sound marks her out as the real deal, a genuine contralto. But the excitement of Prina in performance isn’t just about her extraordinary skill at using her unusual range. Read more... |
Classical and Opera 2013: A Year of AnniversariesSaturday, 28 December 2013
Which musical calendar year isn’t laden down with composer commemorations, too often a pretext for lazy and unimaginative planning? The last 12 months, with Verdi, Wagner and Britten as the birthday boys (in case you failed to hear), have raised the stakes. Read more... |
Fantasio, OAE, Elder, Royal Festival HallMonday, 16 December 2013
Readers who recall the 1872 Paris premiere of Offenbach’s Fantasio have had 141 years to wonder when its British debut would arrive. Read more... |
Parsifal, Royal OperaSunday, 01 December 2013
Is anyone else sick of creepy brotherhoods skewering the transcendent in Mozart’s and Wagner’s late operas? Both Sarastro’s cult and the company of the grail are in sore need of change - "fresh blood" would be an unfortunate term under the circumstances - when we first encounter them. Read more... |
Britten 100: An Aldeburgh Centenary DiaryTuesday, 26 November 2013
The most intensive period of music-making I’ll ever experience, celebrating the 100th birthday of Benjamin Britten in and around his home town, ended on Sunday. I’m an Aldeburgh resident and I attended everything on offer. I thought the best way to provide an overview was to compile a diary of the past four days with a line or two about each event. Thursday 21 November (eve of the birthday) Read more... |
Albert Herring, BBCSO, Bedford, BarbicanSunday, 24 November 2013
Three cheers for good old Albert, natural laugh-out-loud heir of Verdi’s Falstaff and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and the best possible way to mark creator Britten’s being one hundred years and one day old. Youth has its day in both those earlier masterpieces, but the lovers are subordinate to the middle-aged comic protagonists. Here they're the equals of a hero who is no scamster but a shy grocer’s boy who busts out drinking and worse to loosen the apron strings of a prim community. Read more... |
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