Month: June 2019

Strictly speaking, The Weimar Republic began on 11th August 1919 when the Weimar Constitution was announced and ended with the Enabling Act of 23rd March 1933 when all power to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag was disbanded.

Investec Opera Holland Park’s brilliantly cast new production of Un ballo in maschera reunites several of the creative team from last year’s terrific La traviata, with director Rodula Gaitanou, conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren and lighting designer Simon Corder being joined by the designer, takis.

Where better than The Grange’s magnificent grounds to present Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Hampshire’s neo-classical mansion, with its aristocratic connections and home to The Grange Festival, is the perfect setting to explore 18th century class structures as outlined in Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto.

Grange Park Opera opened its 2019 season with a revival of Jo Davies fine production of Verdi’s Don Carlo, one of the last (and finest) productions in the company’s old home in Hampshire.

The first woman composer to receive the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize could not have been a worthier candidate.

The renown and repute of Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521) both during his lifetime and in the years following his death was so extensive and profound that many works by his contemporaries, working in Northern France and the Low Countries, were mis-attributed to him. One such was the six-part Requiem by Jean Richafort (c.1480-c.1550) which formed the heart of this poised concert by the vocal ensemble Cinquecento at Wigmore Hall, in which they gave pride of place to Josquin’s peers and successors and, in the final item, an esteemed forbear.

Symphonie fantastique and LÈlio together, as they should be, with FranÁois-Xavier Roth and Les SiËcles livestreamed from the Philharmonie de Paris (link below). Though Symphonie fantastique is heard everywhere, all the time, it makes a difference when paired with LÈlio because this restores Berlioz’s original context.

In 1917 Leoö Jan·?ek travelled to Luha?ovice, a spa town in the ZlÌn Region of Moravia, and it was here that he met for the first time Kamila Stˆsslov·, the young married woman, almost 40 years his junior, who was to be his muse for the remaining years of his life.

At this end of this performance of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at Investec Opera Holland Park, the first question I wanted to ask director Karolina Sofulak was, why the 1960s?