Leeds
Masque of Might, Opera North review - a tale of ecological virtueMonday, 16 October 2023
Sir David Pountney’s creation of a “masque” performance for our times, recycling music Purcell wrote for his, is downright good entertainment even if the plotline’s a bit incoherent.Now that’s a virtue, if you look at the 17th century models he’s... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Pale Saints - In RibbonsSunday, 08 October 2023
In an interview following the release of Pale Saints’ March 1992 second album In Ribbons, the band’s Ian Masters expressed his admiration for Eyeless in Gaza, Laura Nyro and Television. He told Option magazine “I find it incredible how much I am... Read more... |
Falstaff, Opera North review - going green and having funFriday, 29 September 2023
There’s a charmingly retro feel to Opera North’s new Falstaff, which comes from it being done as part of their new “green”, i.e. ecologically conscious, season.Leslie Travers’ set is made of bits from other productions and – most notably – shows... Read more... |
First Person: Director Sir David Pountney on creating a new 'Masque of Might' from the music of PurcellWednesday, 27 September 2023
Purcell came very early to me. When I was a chorister at St. John’s Cambridge “Jehova quam multi sunt” was a perennial favourite and we were thrilled by the evenings when George Guest brought in some string players to accompany Purcell’s verse... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Keeping Control, Where Were You - Leeds and Manchester navigate the aftershocks of punkSunday, 16 July 2023
“Keeping Control” were the watchwords adopted by The Manchester Musicians’ Collective, an organisation founded in April 1977 to bring local musicians together and give them platforms. On 23 May 1977, it put on its first show – also the first live... Read more... |
'Right now, we're in chaos': pianist and Leeds Lieder director Joseph Middleton on catastrophic cuts to arts fundingMonday, 05 June 2023
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.” Replace a few of George Orwell’s words in 1984 and most musicians right now would find alarming resonance in the statement: “If you want a picture of the... Read more... |
The Pearl Fishers, Opera North review - focus on the mysteryWednesday, 17 May 2023
The Pearl Fishers is very much a mid-19th century Romantic opera, with a plot that’s basically a love triangle set in an exotic location. Its writers, Michel Carré and Eugène Cormon, were not the greatest of plot inventors, and after hearing the... Read more... |
Album: Nia Archives - Sunrise Bang ur Head Against the WallFriday, 10 March 2023
We are way, way past the point where it makes any sense to talk of jungle or drum’n’bass “revivals”. Thirty years from the emergence of jungle from the rave scene, its tempo and tropes have remained a staple sound for generation upon generation of... Read more... |
Ariadne auf Naxos, Opera North review - funny and beautifully sungMonday, 20 February 2023
Rodula Gaitanou’s production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos is a hugely entertaining treatment of an opera that brings its fair share of problems to any company, and the chief virtue of Opera North’s presentation (a co-production with... Read more... |
The Cunning Little Vixen, Opera North review - magic of a classic stagingMonday, 06 February 2023
It’s good to think that there are some opera productions – not just compositions – that in themselves can have the status of classics. David Pountney’s 1980 interpretation of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen must be high on a list of contenders... Read more... |
Orfeo ed Euridice, Opera North review - more than a concertThursday, 27 October 2022
Though billed as a “concert performance”, this was really much more than that. With the resources of their own theatre, Opera North’s team present a staging that employs a big, built-up and raked floor, with a simple platform in the centre and a... Read more... |
Orpheus, Opera North review - cross-cultural opera in actionSaturday, 15 October 2022
Within its own aspirations, Orpheus is a complete triumph. “Monteverdi reimagined”, as Opera North subtitled it from the start, is an attempt to unite (and contrast, and compare, and cross-fertilise) early baroque opera with South Asian classical... Read more... |
