Reviews
Review: Calixa Lavallée’s The Widow, Toronto Operetta Theatre, Nov. 5, 2018
Is Canada’s own ‘Merry’ Widow really Canadian at all? Marketed as Canada’s own ‘Merry’ Widow, referencing Franz Lehar’s famous German operetta The Merry Widow, Toronto Operetta Theatre’s single performance of Calixa Lavallée’s The Widow (presented in hounour of...
Review: Missing, City Opera Vancouver, Nov. 3, 2017
Missing, a co-commission by City Opera Vancouver and Pacific Opera Victoria, opened at Vancouver’s York Theatre on Nov. 3 and moves to Victoria for an already sold-out run on the 17th. A courageous commission, yes, but also canny: COV and POV must have put out feelers...
Review: New Berlioz: Les Troyens (Erato)
Berlioz: Les Troyens (Erato) John Nelson, Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres, Marie-Nicole Lemieux Almost every new release I sampled this week should never have been made. One album after another lacked conviction, coherence and, sometimes, pulse. These are records where...
La Tragédie de Carmen review – opera on an unforgivingly small scale
Wilton’s Music Hall, London Peter Brook’s take on Bizet squeezes all the famous tunes into an economic, stripped-down production for four, but demanded too much of these singers Strip all the packaging off Bizet’s Carmen – the cigarette factory girls, the...
The 2017 Glyndebourne Tour arrives in Canterbury with a satisfying Così fan tutte
Hytner’s elegant production is a smooth slow-burner: everything unfolds with subtlety and slickness - from the graceful sliding panel which transforms an urbane interior to a sun-drenched exterior in the blink of an eye, to Don Alfonso’s sly manoeuvrings, to the...
The Consul review – Menotti’s clunky opera resists Guildhall’s best efforts
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...
Lucia di Lammermoor review – bloody and convincing
Royal Opera House, London Katie Mitchell’s intelligent production of Donizetti’s opera - here on its first revival - takes plenty of worthwhile liberties, and soprano Lisette Oropesa as Lucia is sensational Last April, Katie Mitchell was upfront about the...
Richard Jones’s Rodelinda returns to ENO
An indignant sense of unjust usurpation was probably just as prevalent in Hanoverian London - that is, among those Jacobites who sought to re-establish a Stuart monarchy. But, despite the large map of Milan which looms from the wall of the political...
Review: Canadian Opera Company’s Centre Stage Gala featuring the Ensemble Studio Competition, Nov. 1, 2017
On Nov. 1, 2017, the Canadian Opera Company presented its annual Centre Stage Gala featuring the Ensemble Studio Competition. The order and wording of this title is not without significance. The evening is as much about the glittering, fundraising dinner that takes...
Rodelinda review – top-notch cast embrace dark vision of Handel
By: George Hall for the Guardian (UK) Coliseum, London In its original 1724 form, Handel’s opera dealt with complex political and amorous machinations among a seventh-century ruling Lombard elite. Richard Jones’s 2014 production moves the action to fascist Italy,...
Sondra Radvanovsky gives a flawless recital
Reviewing a concert given by an artist with a voice like the stentorian soprano Sondra Radvanovsky has, is a very difficult task for a music critic. After all, how can one criticize something that is flawless! Such was my experience after attending the recital she...
The Genius of Purcell: Carolyn Sampson and The King’s Consort at the Wigmore Hall
Framed at the centre of the platform by bass violist Reiko Ichise and theorbo player Lynda Sayce, with violinists Cecilia Bernardini and Huw Daniel to right and left, and Robert King’s harpsichord and chamber organ to the rear, Sampson looked and sounded the epitome...