Opera
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... 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... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Brno - a visionary at home in his ‘Moravian Bayreuth’Saturday, 24 December 2022
“Visionary,” I’m told, is a clichéd word these days. But so long as you don’t fling it about too freely, it’s apt: for me, there are only two visionary directors working in opera right now. One is our own Richard Jones – though even he can get it... 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... 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.But this ain’t no... 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. The scaled-down wing of Irish National... Read more... |
An open letter from Dame Sarah Connolly and colleagues to Arts Council EnglandMonday, 28 November 2022
The decision of Arts Council England to withdraw funding from the English National Opera and force it to move out of London is not only another hammer blow to the opera industry but it has huge ramifications for the extensive number of British... 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... 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... Read more... |
First Person: conductor Leo Hussain on why we still need English National Opera in LondonWednesday, 16 November 2022
I still remember vividly my first encounter with ENO. I was taken, as a nine-year-old boy, on a school trip to see a performance of Peter Grimes. And I was hooked. I pestered my parents to take me back several times to that same production. I can... 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-... 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. Cue... Read more... |
