Each early spring the Opéra national de Lyon imagines three operas within a vague thematic framework to comprise its Winter Festival. This year the theme is “Se saisir de l’avenir”…
Barbara Hannigan at the Barbican (II)
The second of Barbara Hannigan’s two March LSO concerts opened with a UK premiere: Golfam Khayam’s Je ne suis pas une fable à conter, which Hannigan commissioned and has already…
Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall
Founded in October 1964 by Amelia Freedman at the Royal Academy of Music, a shortish walk away from the Wigmore Hall, the Nash Ensemble is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary season,…
L’Avenir nous le dira and 7 Minutes in Lyon
The first a premiere, the second of recent vintage. Both constructed on count downs (the first, one hour, the second, two hours) — thus the Opéra de Lyon’s Winter Festival…
A Tale of Two Fidelios
At the Metropolitan Opera, performances of the same opera with the same singers just a few days apart often sound very different. During the recent run of Fidelio, for example,…
Musical liveliness transcends some obscurities in the Royal Academy’s hospital-based Magic Flute
Jamie Manton’s production of The Magic Flute for the Royal Academy of Music takes its cue from Tamino’s predicament at the opera’s opening – wounded and in mortal danger. Accordingly,…
Off with her head!: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda at Hamburg State Opera
Had it not been for King Henry VIII, England would have remained a Catholic country and the course of English, and later British, history would have been very different. Had…
On Haydn’s desert island at the Paris Opera
L’isola disabitata (The Uninhabited Island) is a comparatively late opera by Haydn, or rather an azione teatrale, which calls for only four soloists and an intimate setting. Indeed, it may…
Barbara Hannigan at the Barbican
Barbara Hannigan is unquestionably a star in today’s musical firmament. Anyone who has heard (and seen) her Ligeti Mysteries of the Macabre, live or recorded, would neither doubt nor forget…
An unconventional, satirical take on Weber’s Der Freischütz for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen at Antwerp
Weber’s Der Freischütz is well-known – and variously admired or deplored – as one of the seminal works of German musical Romanticism. Despite its fame and influence, it isn’t now…