Wagner
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2012-13 seasonTuesday, 01 May 2012Chief Conductor Vasily Petrenko commences his seventh season, exploring the music of Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes. The soloists roll call includes Simon Trpčeski, Tasmin Little, Tine Thing Helseth, Daniel Müller-Schott. Liverpool... Read more... |
The Flying Dutchman, English National OperaSunday, 29 April 2012
Obsession and redemption, the twin themes of Wagner's ghostly earliest masterpiece, are two words that could just as pertinently be applied to Jonathan Kent's new production for English National Opera. Obsession is how many non-diehard Wagner opera-... Read more... |
Parsifal, Mariinsky Opera/Gergiev, Wales Millennium CentreSunday, 01 April 2012
Is it my imagination, or are we getting more Wagner in concert than we used to? It could be a welcome development. How marvellous not to have to tremble at the thought of the latest flight of directorial fantasy: Isolde pregnant, Siegfried as an... Read more... |
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, 2012-13 SeasonThursday, 22 March 2012The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) has announced its 2012-13 season. Donald Runnicles opens his fourth season as chief conductor with the first act of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, launching the orchestra... Read more... |
Regional Opera, 2012 SeasonThursday, 12 January 2012
Popular operatic love stories by Puccini, Wagner and Mozart dominate the regional scene in 2012, but key talents like producer Tim Albery in Leeds, Lothar Koenigs in Cardiff and David McVicar in Glasgow all promise significant stage experiences.... Read more... |
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Royal OperaTuesday, 20 December 2011
A young chap from Elsewhere woos an alderman's daughter: not Dick Whittington in panto London, but Wagner's Walther von Stolzing in an unseasonal Nuremberg. No one is going to mind the solstitial disjunction - celebrating midsummer revels in the... Read more... |
Der Fliegende Holländer, Royal OperaWednesday, 19 October 2011
Whether or not we believe Wagner’s retrospective rebranding of the opera as a prototype music-drama, “a complete, unbroken web”, Der Fliegende Holländer reliably makes for a vivid evening’s entertainment. Which makes it all the more strange that... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Bass Sir John Tomlinson, Part 2Sunday, 18 September 2011
A legend on the operatic stage, Sir John Tomlinson (CBE) has sung with all the major British opera companies, made countless recordings, and for sixteen years was a fixture at Bayreuth, where he performed leading roles in each of Wagner's epic works... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Bass Sir John Tomlinson, Part 1Saturday, 17 September 2011
Next week Sir John Tomlinson (b 1946), renowned mega-bass and routine frequenter of the Covent Garden stage, appears in concert at the Windsor Festival. It is a picturesque halt on a career that sees him circling the world's greatest opera houses in... Read more... |
The Last Night of the Proms, Bullock, Lang Lang, BBCSO, GardnerSunday, 11 September 2011
Stately females sailed the corridors like grand multicoloured liners. Grown men in boaters and Union Jack waistcoats raced balloons to the Royal Albert Hall ceiling. Beachballs. Streamers. Flags. Fancy dress. One St George's Cross read "... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Soprano Susan BullockSunday, 04 September 2011
It may have taken her until 2005 to get her Wigmore Hall debut, until 2006 to break onto the stage of the Royal Opera House, but at 53 Susan Bullock has finally arrived, claiming the crown of soloist for this year’s Last Night of the Proms, a firm... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Douglas, BBC Symphony Orchestra, DausgaardMonday, 22 August 2011
Having been away in remote mountain places, I hadn't heard that the BBCSO's chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek was taking a month off to recover from a virus. So it was a bracing last-minute shock to find the man stepping up to the podium to conduct... Read more... |
