Mercadante is the nearly man of Italian opera, with a successful career lasting from 1819 to the 1860s yet never quite achieving the level of prominence, or historical endurance, of…
Month: June 2022
A harrowing but very ‘human’ Winterreise from Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis at Wigmore Hall
There could really only be one work with which Mark Padmore would conclude this season residency at Wigmore Hall, a series forming his final solo recitals at the Hall, but…
Rusalka at Garsington Opera
Garsington Opera planned its production of Dvořák’s Rusalka for 2020 with Natalya Romaniw in the title role. Cancelled and re-scheduled for 2022, thankfully still with Romaniw, the production debuted last…
OTSL: Awakenings Rouses Empathy
Composer Tobias Picker and librettist Aryeh Lev Stollman have created an emotional rollercoaster of an operatic experience with Awakenings, yet another world premiere by the enterprising Opera Theatre of Saint…
Platée at the Palais Garnier (Paris)
The French are indeed “frogs!” Rameau’s Platée (1745) as told by stage director Laurent Pelly is yet another proof. This production appeared first in 1999, then again in 2005, 2007…
Harvey Milk : Prejudice and Pride in Saint Louis
It’s Pride Month, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis can be justifiably “proud” of its absorbing new production of Harvey Milk, in its most recent iteration by composer Stewart Wallace…
London premiere of Tom Coult’s Violet at the Hackney Empire
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the starsDid wander darkling in the eternal space,Rayless, and pathless, and the ice earthSwung blind…
Handsome performances in Verdi’s Otello from Grange Park Opera
Shadows, suspicion and saintliness each find a tragic outlet in Grange Park Opera’s Otello – Verdi’s late masterpiece, prompted by his publisher and premiered in 1887 following a period of…
Die tote Stadt at Longborough Festival Opera
‘Bruges était sa morte. Et sa morte était Bruges.’ In his novella Bruges-la-Morte (1892), the Belgian symbolist author George Rodenbach makes clear the affinity between the ‘dead city’, Bruges, and…
The Excursions of Mr Brouček at Grange Park Opera
Hats off to Grange Park Opera for unquestionably the best of the four ‘country house’ operas I have seen so far this season. First, and perhaps most important, with respect…