In May 1608, the English traveller and eccentric, Thomas Coryat (c.1577-1617), set off on a continental tour of Europe which would take him, often on foot, through France and Italy…
Month: July 2022
Prom 17: London premiere of Jennifer Walshe’s The Site of an Investigation
I am sure one could find something these two works had in common if one tried; one always can. The question is whether it would be anything more than a…
Richard Blackford’s Pietà at the Three Choirs Festival
The Stabat Mater is a Latin hymn, probably dating from the 13th century, which commemorates and mediates upon the sorrow and grief of the Virgin Mary at the Crucifixion, as…
Des Moines’ Porgy and Bess Marks a Milestone
How was Des Moines Metro Opera’s closing performance of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess a landmark event? Let me count the ways. First, it marked the successful completion of DMMO’s…
René Jacobs revisits Bach’s Mass in B minor
Having enjoyed René Jacobs’ superb recording of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis which was issued by harmonia mundi in 2021, I was looking forward to this new account of Bach’s Mass in B…
Frolicsome Fairies in Iowa’s Cornfields
With all the doom, gloom and dispiriting events dominating the news cycle, Des Moines Metro Opera served up a perfect antidote with a sassy yet classy staging of Benjamin Britten…
Dyson’s Quo Vadis at the Three Choirs Festival
George Dyson began composing his nine-movement ‘cycle of poems’, Quo Vadis, in 1936 and completed it as the Second World War was ending, in 1945, but if it the grand…
Resurrexi! The Choir of Keble College, Oxford
There have been some fine recordings in recent years from the Choir of Keble College, Oxford, and this is the first disc directed by Paul Brough who succeeded Matthew Martin…
Beyond the Garden: a haunting one-act opera by Stephen McNeff
Theodor Adorno called her ‘the monster’; the wife of the writer Friedrich Torberg derided her as ‘a grande dame and at the same time a cesspool’. Yet, Alma Mahler was…
Burgeoning with life: Tête à Tête announce an exciting 2022 Opera Festival programme
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2022 is a-blossom with wild, unique and unexpected operatic shoots as the outlandish opera company continues to nurture theatre-makers with a diverse range of…