The O17 festival has appropriated Barry Koskie’s acclaimed eye-popping production and cast it from strength with some of the finest young singers to be found on today’s opera stages. Mr. Koskie has co-directed with Suzanne Andrade and the pair has collaborated closely...
At the renowned Philadelphia Museum of Art they presented War Stories, a double bill of Monteverdi’s brief madrigal Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda paired with the contemporary I Have No Stories To Tell You by composer Lembit Beecher and librettist Hannah...
For their opening concert, at the Wigmore Hall, they were joined by one of Classical Opera’s Associate Artists, soprano Louise Alder. Six months ago, one might have described Alder as a ‘rising star’ but recent accolades - including ‘Young Singer of the Year’ at the...
I’m not sure how many of the audience at The Grange for the first of two performances of Jonathan Dove’s opera were Austen aficionados but the foot-stamping reception that the full house gave the composer’s newly orchestrated opera suggested that they thought he’d...
Regional music and arts festivals continue to proliferate, so I ask Padmore what it is that makes the four-day festival at Tetbury distinctive, and rewarding for a performer. He explains that he welcomes the opportunity to perform in a beautiful venue, the Georgian...
The hype surrounding the Hockney retrospective just now in Paris, last year in London and soon to arrive at New York’s Met (November 27), and certainly the 2013 Hockney exhibition at SF’s De Young have kept this now 80 year-old icon of canvas painting at the center of...
Second, summer downpours having necessitated removal into the Church of St Mary’s, the nave of which was too small to accommodate BCO’s set, this performance at SJSS provided an opportunity to see the opera as envisaged by director/designer Jeremy Gray, in a simple...
Even before curtain-up, the gently falling snow was sparkling against the black night sky of late-nineteenth century Paris. This is a production which strives to balance ‘realism’ with romance: exquisite design details create verisimilitude, while the visible...
Medea in Corinto (Medea in Corinth, 1813 and much revised over the course of the next ten years) was Mayr’s best-known opera and remained a repertory staple for a time even after his death. It has been revived frequently in our own day, especially in Italy, where...
In fact, John Gilhooly, the Director of the Wigmore Hall, looked surprisingly relaxed on Saturday evening at the opening recital of the 2017/18 season - but, then, well he might since he had been fortunate in having Irish tenor Robin Tritschler available and willing...
In fact, Brunel’s Grade II* listed Grand Entrance Hall has rung with the sounds of serenades before: as Brunel Museum director Robert Hulse explained during his interval talk, it was the venue for the world’s first underground concert party in 1827. Though its...
Full credit, then, to director Olivia Fuchs, conductor Sian Edwards and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group for this imaginative, thoughtfully programmed and highly engaging contextualisation of the work - one which gave us not only eight songs for a mad King, but...