Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London A talented team do their best to breathe life into Menotti’s clumsy opera with its B-movie score and nightmarish tale of bureaucracy and secret police It’s hard to believe now that in the 1950s and 60s Gian Carlo...
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge The Melos Sinfonia’s thrilling concert performance of George Benjamin’s intense, horrifying work was often more dramatic than full productions In the five years since its premiere at the Aix-en-Provence festival, Written on Skin has...
Royal Opera House, London Richard Jones’s new staging of Puccini’s opera is uncontroversial and precise, but Nicole Car is a touching Mimi and Antonio Pappano’s conducting is superb By the time it was finally retired in 2015, the Royal Opera’s previous production of...
Peacock theatre, London British Youth Opera’s compact revival showcases a strong ensemble cast Judith Weir’s second opera has hardly been seen in the UK since Scottish Opera commissioned it and gave the first performances in 1990. British Youth Opera’s resourceful and...