Reviews
The School of Jealousy: Bampton Classical Opera bring Salieri to London
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...
Richard Jones’ new La bohème opens ROH season
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...
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream: Composer Moto Osada’s New Opera at the Japan Society
It is such stuff as dreams are made on. This week, the Japan Society in New York City plays host to the North American premiere of eminent Japanese composer Moto Osada’s opera Four Nights of Dream. Ironically, given the title, the run is for only three nights –...
La Bohème, Royal Opera House review – efficient but antiseptic production generates passion only in the pit
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...
The Vanishing Bridegroom review – Judith Weir’s ingenious folk opera in concise BYO revival
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...
Robin Tritschler and Julius Drake open Wigmore Hall’s 2017/18 season
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...
The Opera Box at the Brunel Museum
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...
British Youth Opera; Vienna Philharmonic/Harding; András Schiff – review
Peacock theatre; Royal Albert Hall, London Potential opera stars seize their moment in The Vanishing Bridegroom and Don Giovanni. Plus, two miraculous hours of Bach from András Schiff If you shone a torch round the auditorium of London’s Peacock theatre in early...
Proms at Wiltons: Eight Songs for a Mad King
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...
The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief: Opera della Luna at Wilton’s Music Hall
The musical memory had been jolted by the waltzing strains of Roses from the South, the arrangement which had kept an otherwise forgotten operetta alive in the minds of Strauss’s contemporaries and subsequent audiences. Written in 1880, six years after Die Fledermaus,...
Mosh-pit opera: Fugazi’s random stage banter set to music
Random drum beats, guitar noodling, rants about gig etiquette: a new opera draws together every live performance by the cult punk band – not the songs, but everything in between As the air is released from a bright red balloon, the stage erupts in a strict...
Rossini’s Torvaldo e Dorliska in Pesaro
Already before Torvaldo e Dorliska Rossini had three of his major comedies under his belt (La pietra del paragone, L’italiana in Algeri and Il turco in Italia) and two successful tragedies (Tancredi and Elisabetta). But Torvaldo e Dorliska is a dramma semiseria — a...