Wagner
theartsdesk in Bayreuth: Wagner in the LaboratorySaturday, 13 August 2011
Richard Wagner has probably only himself to blame if his operas have become a laboratory for the testing-to-destruction of the intellectual preoccupations of that Opera Führer of our time, the stage director. Wagner it was, after all, who... Read more... |
Tannhäuser, Bayreuth FestivalTuesday, 02 August 2011
In 1981, when I last came to Bayreuth, the festival still seemed to be a battleground between the German Left and Right, between the blame faction and the guilt faction, between the commie East and the fat-cat West. Plus ça change. Without quite... Read more... |
Siegfried, Longborough FestivalTuesday, 26 July 2011
Longborough has its Mozart (this season a not wildly exciting Così fan tutte), and it has its Verdi (this year Falstaff). But its real heart is in Wagner, and in particular The Ring, now – in its third year – up to Siegfried. Wagnerites infest the... Read more... |
Die Walküre: The Madness of an Extraordinary Plan, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterSunday, 17 July 2011
The Hallé Orchestra, enlarged for the occasion with harps, anvils, horns and such, was in its place on the platform. Sir Mark Elder made his entrance like a surgeon about to embark on a complex and energy-draining heart bypass operation. And the... Read more... |
Das Rheingold, Opera NorthSunday, 19 June 2011
After years of planning, Opera North's Ring cycle gets under way. The orchestra pit at the Leeds Grand Theatre is too small for Wagner's oversized orchestra. So this is a concert staging, to be repeated in the coming months at The Sage Gateshead,... Read more... |
Barenboim, Staatskapelle Berlin, Boulez, Royal Festival HallMonday, 13 June 2011
What next - Boulez and Daniel Barenboim in Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov? The two numbered Liszt concertos are probably as far as they're going to go in lacier romantic repertoire, and last night it didn't feel far enough to justify the predictable... Read more... |
Tristan und Isolde, Opéra de LyonMonday, 13 June 2011
Travelling by Eurostar, or plane, to the continent and buying a ticket, all for less than the cost of a Covent Garden stalls seat, might entice if you wanted to see a certain opera, singer or conductor. But to go so far for the look of a staging?... Read more... |
Apocalypse NowFriday, 27 May 2011
More phantasmagorically beautiful than it ever had any right to be given its subject, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now begins as a nightmare, or a delirium, with thup-thup-thupping helicopters ghosting in and out of the frame in front of the... Read more... |
Rambert, Cardoon Club/ Roses/ Monolith, Sadler’s WellsTuesday, 24 May 2011
Paul Taylor's Roses is called Roses because, well, because it is. There are no roses here, no flowery sentiment, no overwrought angst and emotion. This, one of Taylor’s most beautifully serene works, is the smell of roses on a still May evening:... Read more... |
European Festivals 2011 Round-UpMonday, 23 May 2011
Be different - take a festival break in Europe instead of the UK, and catch a different landscape. While artists in both new music and classical are constantly circling the world in search of more picturesque settings, you can find your alternative... Read more... |
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Glyndebourne Festival OperaSunday, 22 May 2011
So the world didn't end yesterday as predicted, and Wagner's divine comedy about the meaning of art has weathered the ironic apocalypse following Hitler’s misappropriation. Bayreuth reels, but we Brits are lucky to have two stagings in under a year... Read more... |
Brewer, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 04 May 2011
In a London Philharmonic season playing safer than before, principal conductor Vladimir Jurowski has earned the right to a few meat-and-two-veg programmes. Even in a concert containing more than a handful of your hundred best tunes, Wagnerian... Read more... |
