Dvořák
Rusalka, Grange Park OperaThursday, 16 June 2011
Its little-mermaid legend is enough to make the angels weep, given the bewitching gravity of Dvořák's masterpiece: a water nymph, caught between the human and supernatural worlds, condemns herself to eternal limbo for the sake of her erring princely... Read more... |
110th Anniversary Gala 2, Wigmore HallWednesday, 01 June 2011
Ghosts legendary and personal dog the nostalgic footsteps of Elgar's utterly characteristic late Piano Quintet - though who knew the old man had as much red blood in him as last night's world-class team managed to squeeze out? And circumstantial... Read more... |
Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, Usher Hall, EdinburghSaturday, 26 March 2011
White-knuckle crescendos loom large in that greater-than-ever conductor Neeme Järvi's spruce Indian summer. Short-term bursts were the chief payoff in tackling Dvořák's deceptively simple-seeming Serenade for Strings with a huge department on all... Read more... |
Sir Charles Mackerras Memorial Concert, Royal Festival HallFriday, 05 November 2010
In the last year of his life he was, as a colleague noted when we learned of Charles Mackerras’s death, the wise old gamekeeper in the spring forest of Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen. No wonder Mackerras, we were told last night by his conductor... Read more... |
Tetzlaff Quartet, Queen Elizabeth HallFriday, 22 October 2010
Their oaky, cultured and selectively scary-wild playing seemed to cast long autumn shadows over a sparse but intent audience. This is the kind of rare programme top violinist Christian Tetzlaff, his cellist sister Tanja and friends like to work on... Read more... |
Mutter, LSO, Sir Colin Davis, BarbicanMonday, 11 October 2010
It didn't help that the London Symphony Chorus sounded rough and hectoring rather than earthily ecstatic - and I'm not sure how well they had been coached in the Czech-language mass settings. Heroic tenor Simon O'Neill, Sir Colin's last-minute... Read more... |
Kissin, LPO, Neeme Järvi, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 06 October 2010
"Well, Kissin's the star of the show," opined the fatuous gentleman who rolled in late to my row after the first piece on the programme. Possibly not, I wanted to snap back, in the light of that very fine pianist's current erratic form. But in any... Read more... |
Connolly, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bělohlávek, BarbicanSaturday, 02 October 2010
As experienced Wagnerian Jiří Bělohlávek came on to launch the BBCSO's new season in mid-air with the Tristan Prelude, I wondered whether the world's finest interpreter of Isolde's serving maid Brangäne, lustrous mezzo Sarah Connolly, was waiting to... Read more... |
The Last Night of the Proms, BBC One: The Twitter ReviewSaturday, 11 September 2010
Part 2 @bbcproms. The madness begins. Ms Derham has not switched gowns in the interval. No sign of Titchmarsh, for which we must give thanks.The "traditional" necklace of laurels for Sir Henry Wood's bust. Wonder if he'd welcome his head being... Read more... |
Vogt, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Gardiner, Royal Albert HallMonday, 30 August 2010
Short of rolling around the podium like a delirious pig in a mudbath, Sir John Eliot Gardiner couldn't have hidden his enjoyment of the warm, plush sounds and well-upholstered vibrato of this wonderfully old-fashioned orchestra, the Czech... Read more... |
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Boyd, Royal Albert HallFriday, 30 July 2010
The banquet's laid, the host is absent but the guests can still relish the first-class fare in his memory. Sir Charles Mackerras was perhaps looking down happily in the company of Mozart and Dvořák as another oboist-turned-conductor like himself,... Read more... |
Rusalka, Opera NorthSaturday, 22 May 2010
A thousand miles away from the Disney version, the transformation scene in Dvořák’s Rusalka is bleak and terrifying. With not a cauldron, bat or cobweb to be seen, the heroine is strapped to an operating table before imbibing the witch’s magic... Read more... |
