Idomeneo, said to be one of the great operas of all times in a magnificent production at Pierre Audi’s Aix Festival. Though the Mozart opera seria itself had been filtered…
Year: 2022
Kaleidoscope: in conversation with Fatma Said
kaleidoscope (OED): ‘an optical instrument containing pieces of coloured glass which may be rotated into constantly altering, brightly coloured, symmetrical figures and reflections; a constantly changing group of bright colours…
Glyndebourne’s landmark production of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers streaming on Glyndebourne Encore from 1 August
Opera lovers around the world will get their chance to see Glyndebourne’s landmark production of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers from Monday 1 August when a live film recording is released on the…
Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at Grange Park Opera
La Gioconda (1876) is a rare visitor to opera stages in the UK and this Grange Park Opera production, originally scheduled for the 2020 season, offers a welcome opportunity to…
Salome at the Aix Festival
A ponderous reading of the Strauss score, a meticulous, methodical staging of the Oscar Wilde drama. A radiant Salome, an unleashed Herod. Unsettling, sentient scenography. Unexpected magnificence. High, very high…
Outstanding Turn of the Screw from Garsington
Set within acres of verdant parkland and a lake, Garsington’s glass-sided auditorium surely makes the perfect location for Britten’s chamber opera, especially when dusk approaches on the Wormsley Estate. As…
Sumptuous artifice and sweet melancholy: Alcina at Glyndebourne
Lucidity is not a common characteristic of the Baroque opera libretto, and the anonymous text of Handel’s Alcina – drawn from an episode in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso – twists and…
Così fan tutte at the Royal Opera House
First unveiled in 2016, this second revival of Jan Philipp Gloger’s Così fan tutte remains self-consciously preoccupied with the question, ‘What is theatre?’ While his interview in the souvenir programme…
Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder: Anna Prohaska and Christian Gerhaher at Wigmore Hall
A decidedly superior Liederabend, in terms of verse, musical setting, and performance. Hugo Wolf remains a connoisseur’s composer: slightly perplexing, perhaps, but then there is no playing to the gallery,…
Dragons and slayers: a new recording of Lampe’s burlesque opera The Dragon of Wantley from Resonus Classics
‘A dragon is no idle fancy. Whatever may be his origins, in fact or invention, the dragon in legend is a potent creation of men’s imagination, richer in significance than…