opera directors
Otello, Grange Park Opera review - angels and demonsTuesday, 21 June 2022
The devil, in Verdi’s Otello, doesn’t quite have all the best tunes. Desdemona trumps him there. But the arch-manipulator Iago boasts a part of such polished, seductive wickedness that (as in Shakespeare’s tragedy) the villain can often make off... Read more... |
Best of 2021: OperaSunday, 26 December 2021
January to mid-May 2021 were the bleakest Covid months, yielding only the occasional livestream at least half as good as being there (Barrie Kosky’s magically reinvented Strauss Der Rosenkavalier from Munich, a film of Britten's The Turn of the... Read more... |
Remembering Graham Vick (1953-2021) - top colleagues on one of the greatest opera directorsSaturday, 21 August 2021
Five weeks have passed since the death of opera director Graham Vick from complications due to Covid-19, shocking even to those of us (un)prepared for the worst, and yet so many of us think about him every day. For the musicians, actors, dancers and... Read more... |
RhineGold, Birmingham Opera Company, Symphony Hall review - music-drama at the highest levelTuesday, 03 August 2021
The love of power corrupts, the power of love falters or fails. The essence of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung is also what Graham Vick communicated so stunningly in many of his unforgettable productions with his Birmingham Opera Company (... Read more... |
GogolFest:Dream review - the best music festival of the summer?Thursday, 17 September 2020
GogolFest:Dream in Kherson, somewhere near the Crimea in Ukraine was the music festival of the summer. Admittedly, in my case and for many, having missed out on WOMAD, Glastonbury, Fez, and others it was the only festival of the summer, and the bar... Read more... |
The Telephone, Scottish Opera/Cargill, RSNO, Søndergård, Edinburgh International Festival online - human emotions in digital formWednesday, 12 August 2020
Lockdown, perhaps more than any other time, has amplified how modern technology can be both a blessing and a curse. Of course, it’s wonderful to have the means to connect with friends and family scattered across the globe; carry on working, learning... Read more... |
The Encore, Opera Holland Park review - stylish return for a squad of old friendsMonday, 10 August 2020
As Dvořák’s "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka rose to its impassioned climax, Natalya Romaniw had to battle a helicopter thumping overhead. The helicopter lost (well, of course it did). As Nardus Williams and David Butt Phillip disappeared into... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Director Sir Jonathan MillerThursday, 28 November 2019
Doctor, writer, sculptor, curator, comedian, presenter and director, Sir Jonathan Miller (1934-2019) was one of the mighty cultural and intellectual omnivores of our age. To those of a musical or theatrical bent, however, Miller was above all one of... Read more... |
Anna Bolena, Longborough Festival Opera review - Henry VIII's court becomes a sexualised death cultMonday, 24 June 2019
Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. Anne Boleyn is number two on the list, so anyone who can remember even that much Tudor history can guess that Donizetti’s Anna Bolena is not going to end well. The overture has hardly ended... Read more... |
Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs), Brighton Festival 2019 review - a feverishly foul-mouthed musical comedyThursday, 09 May 2019
Five years ago this Kneehigh Theatre production caused a stir with its vibrant modern retelling of John Gay’s 18th century satirical classic, The Beggar’s Opera. It’s currently on tour again and it’s easy to see why a revival was greenlit. It’s a... Read more... |
Idomeneo, English Touring Opera review – honest excellenceSaturday, 09 March 2019
Selfish, cunning, cynical, the older generation has screwed up the world with aggression abroad and dishonesty at home. Can their children make it good again? This family drama of transgression and reparation threads through Idomeneo, the opera that... Read more... |
L'heure espagnole, Mid Wales Opera review - Ravel goes like clockworkSaturday, 01 December 2018
Mid Wales Opera makes small-scale touring look fun – even when you suspect that, behind the scenes, it really isn’t. Barely 24 hours before this performance of their current production of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole, and 11 dates into their current 16... Read more... |
