The London Conservatoires frequently serve up some of the most interesting operatic fare in the capital: unusual programmes, often in eclectic pairings, presented in inventive stagings – and, of course,…
Month: June 2022
Garsington Opera: Così fan tutte
Dismissed by Beethoven and Wagner, it has taken nearly two centuries for Così fan tutte to emerge from society’s censor and for Mozart’s genius for expressing human nature through sublime…
Bampton Classical Opera 2022: Handel’s Clori, Tirsi e Fileno
This autumn Bampton Classical Opera will be giving performances of Handel’s Clori, Tirsi e Fileno, one of his most extended and loveliest cantatas, at venues in Sussex, Oxfordshire and Surrey. Also known…
Monteverdi’s Orfeo at Garsington Opera
What is most striking about John Caird’s new production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo at Garsington Opera is the extent to which it reminds us that the humanist theories informing the aesthetic…
Kathryn Rudge sings an exquisite Sea Pictures beside Vasily Petrenko’s safe Mahler Sixth
The coupling of Elgar’s Sea Pictures and Mahler’s Sixth Symphony is not an obvious one. One tangible link is that Mahler conducted Sea Pictures in the final year of his…
Hamlet at the Met
Today, with post-romanticism and minimalism in decline, most new operas fall into one of two categories. They are either “popularist” or “modernist.” Populist operas are crossover works. Building on Gershwin’s…
Missed chances and haunting memories: Eugene Onegin at Opera Holland Park
If the first night of Julia Burbach’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at Opera Holland Park marked the start of London’s summer opera season, it certainly didn’t mark the start…
A gripping Siegfried at Longborough Festival Opera
There’s something wholly satisfying when an opera is allowed to breathe its own magic without overworked directorial interference. This new production of Siegfried – originally planned for 2021 – forms…
Chelsea Opera Group present a superb Andrea Chénier at the Southbank
The 2022 summer opera season has been getting well and truly underway this week, with first nights at Opera Holland Park (Eugene Onegin) and Garsington (Orfeo), following Glyndebourne’s production of…