Year: 2013

For those whose Wagnerian thirst had not yet been quenched by three parts of the Ring, the Proms now offered Tristan und Isolde.

The brightest star in this performance proved once again to be the Staatskapelle Berlin, under Daniel Barenboim’s guidance.

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 M¸ller’s pessimistic exploration of a mind spinning into disillusion and despair?

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.

The superstitious would have us believe that it is better not to build up expectations, lest they be confounded.

This zany production of Verdi’s only comic opera before ‘Falstaff’ keeps the singers in chaos and the audience in stitches

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.

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.