Entering the hall there arose the Dantesque “abandon all hope ye who enter” feeling — a cluttered a vista socialist setting, a poster of Lenin and large letters proclaiming Moscow, December 1999.
Month: January 2014
The Sixteen: Jephtha
Harry Christophers and The Sixteen brought Handel’s final oratorio, Jephtha, to the Barbican (14 January 2014) preparatory to recording the work.
Matthew Polenzani — Des Grieux, Manon, Royal Opera House
Matthew Polenzani reprises the role of the Chevalier des Grieux in Jules Massenet’s Manon at the Royal Opera House. “I love coming back to London”, he says, “It’s a very good house and they take care of you as a singer. And the level of music making is unbelievably high”.
Cosi fan tutte in Montpellier
This Cosi fan tutte completes the Montpellier Mozart/da Ponte trilogy staged by French metteur en scËne and esthËte Jean-Paul Scarpitta. Primarily studies in elegance and refinement these mises en scËnes have provoked all that that is most precious and perfect in Mozart’s scores.
Rameau: Les Surprises de l’Amour
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/08/rameau-les-surprises-amour-review/print
Matthias Goerne — Mahler and Shostakovich, Wigmore Hall
At the Wigmore Hall, London, Matthias Goerne and Lief Ove Andsnes performed Mahler in a unique programme built around Shostakovich’s Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti, op 145 (1974).
Otello in Genoa
Forget Shakespeare, this was distinctly an Otello without the ‘h’. It was Italian melodramma to its core, the collaboration of its metteur en scËne Davide Livermore, wunderkind conductor Andrea Battistoni and its Desdemona, Maria Agresto.
Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Lyon
Maybe there can be no bigger feat than making it through Les Contes d’Hoffmann in the Laurent Pelly version without a hitch or two.
Claudio Abbado, Italian conductor, dies aged 80
Italian conductor Claudio Abbado, former principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, has died aged 80