Recently in Reviews
13 Aug 2013
In their magnificent Glyndebourne production of Billy Budd, first seen in 2010 and revived here to mark Britten’s centenary anniversary, director Michael Grandage (revival director, Ian Rutherford) and designer Christopher Oram immerse us, quite literally, in the harsh realities of life aboard a late-eighteen-century man-’o-war: the uncompromisingly, and perhaps optimistically, named Indomitable. »
13 Aug 2013
Oscar Wilde wrote: “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.” On July 27, 2013, Theodore Morrison’s opera Oscar had its world premiere at Santa Fe. »
13 Aug 2013
“World-class” is an encomium often used indiscriminately by promoters and publicists but in light of Glimmerglass Festival’s triumphant Der Fliegende Holländer the press office has my full encouragement to use the phrase loud and often.
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13 Aug 2013
A massive antique Roman theater where stadium opera is always grand opera and often good opera as well. »
08 Aug 2013
Conductor Leo Hussein, like many of the artists in the production, was making his debut. His take on the story was immediately ascertainable when he played parts of the overture with an earthy tone. This was Violetta’s world, where otherwise refined men wined, dined, and cavorted with the most expensive Parisian courtesans. »
06 Aug 2013
With celebrations of the Verdi Bicentennial in full swing, there have been
many grumblings about the precarious state of Verdi singing in the world’s
major opera houses today. »
03 Aug 2013
The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at Gloucester Cathedral, highlight of this year's Three Choirs Festival. »
02 Aug 2013
In the thirty-five years immediately following its American première at the Metropolitan Opera in 1914, Italo Montemezzi’s ‘Tragic Poem in Three Acts’ L’amore dei tre re was performed in New York on sixty-six occasions. »
02 Aug 2013
Few operas inspire the kind of competing affection and controversy that have surrounded Mozart’s Così fan tutte almost since its first performance in Vienna in 1790. »
01 Aug 2013
The double-bill program of sacred vocal works uses choreography, sets and costumes to heighten the drama within the music »
31 Jul 2013
During his career in film, opera, and operetta, Richard Tauber (1891 - 1948) enjoyed the sort of global fame that eludes all but the tiniest handful of ‘serious’ singers today. »
30 Jul 2013
By the end of the first act, I was convinced that, barring a catastrophe of, well, Götterdämmerung-like proportions, this would now turn out to be the greatest Ring since Bernard Haitink’s 1998 Royal Opera performances— also semi-staged, also at the Royal Albert Hall. »
30 Jul 2013
For those whose Wagnerian thirst had not yet been quenched by three parts of the Ring, the Proms now offered Tristan und Isolde. »
30 Jul 2013
The brightest star in this performance proved once again to be the Staatskapelle Berlin, under Daniel Barenboim’s guidance. »
30 Jul 2013
When faced with the illustrious Winterreises of the past and the renowned, and often highly original, interpretations of present-day performers, how is a tenor to approach Schubert’s setting of Wilhelm Müller’s pessimistic exploration of a mind spinning into disillusion and despair? »
30 Jul 2013
One can only imagine the small-ad: “exquisite small italianate water garden wishes to meet pastoral “little opera” in intimate setting, small cast and orchestra ideal, with music of delightful poise and accessibility. »
30 Jul 2013
Don Giovanni — the coup de coeur. Elektra — a masterpiece. Rigoletto — a hit and a miss. »
24 Jul 2013
The superstitious would have us believe that it is better not to build up expectations, lest they be confounded. »
23 Jul 2013
This zany production of Verdi’s only comic opera before ‘Falstaff’ keeps the singers in chaos and the audience in stitches »
23 Jul 2013
That’s Helen (of Troy) by Cavalli, so maybe you are interested after all, though the more engaging experience was The House Taken Over by Vasco Mendonça. »
23 Jul 2013
For me, this is almost to have come full circle — though as anyone with even the slightest acquaintance with the Ring will tell you, the so-called ‘cycle’ does not end where it began, its world having been changed forever. »
22 Jul 2013
The final concert in pianist Julius Drake’s Perspectives series united song, literature and biography through the prism of Dominick Argento’s Pulitzer Prize-winning song-cycle, From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. »
20 Jul 2013
The Royal Albert Hall was made for Karl-Heinz Stockhausen. BBC Prom 11 2013 featured Gesang der Jünglinge and Welt-Parliament from Mittwoch from Licht. »
20 Jul 2013
‘Wort oder Ton?’ may be the Countess’s question, but it is far from the only question asked in, let alone by, Capriccio. »
19 Jul 2013
David Pittsinger, as King Arthur, provided most of the magic in this
pleasant but unspectacular production of the Lerner and Loewe musical »
19 Jul 2013
Donizetti’s late comedy Don Pasquale debuted in Paris in 1843 and has been popular ever since. It was produced at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1938 but, rather surprisingly, Mariame Clement’s 2013 production, refreshingly set in the 18th century rather than being update, was the first festival production since 1938. »
19 Jul 2013
This remarkably cohesive programme of works by Britten, Lutoslawski and Adès was underpinned by a dark intensity; tragic realism interwoven with transient intimations of hope. »
18 Jul 2013
Known principally for its two concert show-pieces for the leading lady, the success of Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur relies upon finding a soprano willing to take on, and able to pull off, the eponymous role. »
17 Jul 2013
There are forces to be reckoned with at l’Opéra de Marseille — a first class orchestra, a first class chorus, first class casts (with notable exception, see below) who inhabit an extraordinarily fine old opera house. »
17 Jul 2013
Pia Furtado’s production of Donizetti’s gentle rom-com, L’elisir d’amore, opens in the greenhouse-laboratory of a sunflower factory — all steel trolleys and agronomic apparatus. »
17 Jul 2013
Excellent staging and strong vocal efforts put wind in the sails of this legendary ghost ship »
16 Jul 2013
Although part of a series entitled Cambridge Introductions to Music, Robert Cannon’s wide-ranging, imaginative and thought-provoking survey of opera is certainly not a ‘beginners’ guide’. »
13 Jul 2013
Ermonela Jaho caused a sensation at Covent Garden in London five years ago, when she took over Violetta at short notice from Anna Netrebko. »
11 Jul 2013
First performed at this year’s Brighton Festival and originally designed for the Theatre Royal Brighton, this multi-media staging of Benjamin Britten’s five Canticles by long-standing collaborators Neil Bartlett and Paule Constable, also had an outing at Snape Maltings Aldeburgh in May this year, and has now arrived on the austere stage of the Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House. »
10 Jul 2013
Central City Opera’s meticulous staging of Our Town makes as good a case as is likely possible for Ned Rorem’s operatic version of that classic play.
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10 Jul 2013
Since its inception in 2006, the annual community opera at Blackheath Halls has become a favourite fixture in the local summer calendar. »
08 Jul 2013
It would be condescending and perhaps even offensive to suggest that singing
traditional Spirituals is a rite a passage for artists of color, but the musical heritage of the United States has been greatly enriched by the performances and recordings of Spirituals by important artists such as Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Shirley Verrett, Grace Bumbry, Jessye Norman, Barbara Hendricks, Florence Quivar, Kathleen Battle, Harolyn Blackwell, and Denyce Graves. »
08 Jul 2013
Poised between ritual and drama, between East and West, between Zen-Buddhist
symbolism and Christian medieval morality play, Britten’s three church parables pose some tricky problems — including a deliberately objectivised framing device which can distance the work from the audience, and, unusually for Britten, some less than effective musico-dramatic pacing. »
08 Jul 2013
‘Tis the season for aerial starbursts, and for my money more than a few rockets could be sent up to laud Des Moines Metro Opera.
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07 Jul 2013
La Rondine isn’t Puccini’s finest moment. As drama it’s a retread of La Bohème. The music resembles out-takes from Madama Butterfly. What holds it together is Magda. »
05 Jul 2013
As a companion to their excellent Great Wagner Singers boxed set
compiled and released in celebration of the Wagner Bicentennial, Deutsche
Grammophon have also released Great Wagner Conductors, a selection of
orchestral music conducted by five of the most iconic Wagnerian conductors of
the Twentieth Century, extracted from Deutsche Grammophon’s extensive
archives. »
02 Jul 2013
Glyndebourne revitalizes Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie. Baroque tastes were extravagant. Louis XIV, Le Roi Soleil, and his successor Louis XV, epitomized the aesthetic: audacity, not gentility, vigour, not timidity. »
30 Jun 2013
Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers confirms the composer’s deftness in penning a good tune and spinning a faux-Oriental orchestral fabric. But, opera is more than simply a catchy melody or two, and if it wasn’t for the tenor-baritone friendship duet ‘Au Fond du Temple Saint’, the opera’s one-dimensional characters and dramatic stiltedness would probably see it consigned to the drawer marked ‘lesser-known, justly neglected’. »
29 Jun 2013
Thomas Hampson's first Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House makes this revival of Verdi's great opera worthwhile. It's a role which suits a singer of Hampson's intelligence. »
28 Jun 2013
We’ll never know exactly how Handel’s first opera, Almira, Königin von Castilien, appeared at its 1705 premiere in Hamburg. »
24 Jun 2013
Engelbert Humperdinck and his sister Adelheid Wette rather softened the story when they came to write the opera Hansel und Gretel, though sufficient undercurrents remain to allow a director scope for exploration of the more psychological aspects of the story. »
