‘Cav and Pag get a divorce’ is Opera Holland Park’s promotional line for its double bill, which prefaces Leoncavallo’s familiar Pagliacci with a relatively rarely seen work, Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto…
PROM 7: Orliński serves up a tasty late-night supper of little-known Italian delicacies
For the first late night Prom of the 2024 season, Jakub Józef Orliński gave this intimate recital of 17th century Italian vocal and operatic music, which would have been sung…
PROM 6: A striking Verdi Requiem of blazing force and compelling drama
With this performance, the first given at the Proms since 2021, and twenty-second since its first outing in 1956, Verdi’s Requiem is now the most frequently performed non-operatic work I…
A cheerful and entertaining performance of Verdi’s late comedy amidst the sylvan magic of West Green
The opera at West Green is back in the ‘green theatre’, rather than open air on the lake, but opened up at the back so that the house itself forms…
Pelléas et Mélisande at Munich
Nine years ago, in this same theatre at this same festival, I saw Munich’s previous Pelléas et Mélisande: a staging by Christiane Pohle which I greatly admired, but everyone else…
Further details announced for four groundbreaking opera and music theatre UK premieres at the Barbican this autumn
This autumn, the Barbican is delighted to host four groundbreaking new opera and music theatre projects that will receive their UK premieres this coming 2024-25 season. Opera and music theatre…
FIFOE 2024 in Entrecasteaux
The Festival International de Film d’Opéra à Entrecasteaux (a tiny village in Provence not far from the A8 autoroute connecting Nice and Marseille). The second edition of this unique summer…
Unalloyed delight: Handel’s Acis and Galatea at Holland Park
This seems to be quite the year for Opera Holland Park: A revelatory Puccini Edgar, a powerful coupling of Wolf-Ferrari (Il segreto di Susanna) and Leoncavallo (Pagliacci), and now the…
DMMO: Best. Barber. Ever.
From the dancing light show during the sprightly overture to the closing precision of the flamenco-disco ensemble moves and every moment in between, Des Moines Metro Opera’s The Barber of…
Sofia Kirwan-Baez & Longborough Festival Opera
David Truslove talks to the young, up-and-coming soprano Sofia Kirwan-Baez – one of ten Emerging Artists to appear in Longborough Festival Opera’s new production of La bohème which runs from…