With the ‘good ship’ Britannia heading straight towards political and economic icebergs that are all too visible, Opera Holland Park’s offer of smoothing sailing aboard H.M.S. Pinafore, with John Savournin…
Month: August 2022
Prom 31: Outstanding Wagner, but an uneven Four Last Songs, from Daniele Rustioni and the Ulster Orchestra.
The Proms is the only time many orchestras around the United Kingdom can get to perform in London – and, conversely, the only opportunity critics and audiences have of hearing…
Donizetti’s Rita: charming summer sparkle at the Charing Cross Theatre
Every farce needs doors, preferably at least three of them. They must be robust enough to be slammed, frequently, and for characters to revolve through at speed, communications thwarted, connections…
Michel-Richard de Lalande: Grands Motets
During the 17th century, daily religious observance was a regular feature at the French court. In the royal chapel Louis XIV was a habitual presence for Low Mass where custom…
Prom 24: Mendelssohnian playfulness and Mahlerian darkness
A premiere, an outstanding debut and a distinctive symphonic account formed a programme given by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under its principal conductor Ryan Bancroft in the third…
Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake, Live from London: ‘Transfigured Love’
VOCES8’s Summer ’22 — LIVE From London series has offered the ensemble the opportunity to form new partnerships, and this recital by Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake was recorded in…
L’elisir d’amore delights at West Green House Opera
The grounds of West Green House in leafy Hampshire drew from director Victoria Newlyn an inspired staging of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. Situating this 1832 comic opera on a Mediterranean cruise…
Il tabarro: Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra play Puccini at the Proms
A barge is moored along a wharf on the Seine River, the sluggish flow of which is a hard-working metaphor in Puccini’s one-act Il tabarro (The cloak) – for the…