Although FranÁois Couperin won his reputation as an esteemed composer at the
ostentatious and vainglorious court of Versailles, under the patronage of Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’, his work is often surprisingly discreet and intimate.
Month: November 2011
FranÁois Couperin by Florilegium, Wigmore Hall
Tosca, ENO
The swift return to the Coliseum of Catherine Malfitano’s production of Tosca, premiered in 2010, contrasts strongly with the increasingly disposable nature of many recent ENO productions.
Saul, Barbican Hall
Handel’s oratorio Saul was the first dramatic oratorio that he wrote with a strong libretto.
Xerxes in San Francisco
No cuts, not a single one, nearly four hours of non-stop arias, and its only hit tune happens within the first five minutes.
The Queen of Spades, Opera North
Opera North holds a special place in my affections: my first full opera in the theatre was the company’s Wozzeck, which I saw as a schoolboy at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield.
Hugh the Drover Over the Pub
Imagine a tuneful eighteenth-century “ballad opera” of country
life, say Stephen Storace’s enduringly popular No Song No
Supper, cross it with Cavalleria Rusticana, throw in a bit of
Rocky for good measure, and you have some idea of Ralph Vaughan
Williams’s first opera, Hugh the Drover, a “Romantic
Ballad Opera.”
Turandot in San Francisco
The magnificent David Hockney Turandot production burst again onto the War Memorial stage with a new cast and conductor that recaptured its potential to make this fairytale into great opera.
Lucia di Lammermoor, Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago staged Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di
Lammermoor as its second production of the current season with Susanna
Phillips taking on the role of the heroine torn between romantic love and familial pressures.
Piotr Beczala
Piotr Beczala, the Polish lyric tenor, stars in the current La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, London.