‘I believe hugely in advertising and blowing my own trumpet, beating the gongs, drums, to attract attention to a show.’ So wrote Phineas Taylor Barnum to a publisher in 1860, adding, ‘As…
Year: 2023
Bampton Classical Opera Young Singers’ Competition 2023 Announcement
Bampton Classical Opera Young Singers’ Competition 2023 – Entries now Open Public Final: Saturday 25 November, 6pmLeonard Wolfson Auditorium, Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford, OX2 6UD Applications are now open…
English Touring Opera begin new era with Robin Norton-Hale at the helm
English Touring Opera’s General Director, Robin Norton-Hale, launches the ETO’s new era with an ambitious season that places innovation and excellence at the heart of the company’s work. Norton-Hale, who assumed leadership…
Treemonisha 2.0 in Joplin’s Hometown
It takes nearly forty minutes to get to the music Scott Joplin himself wrote for Treemonisha at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and I don’t mean that as a bad…
Saint Louis: Oh, Susannah!
From the downbeat of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ riveting production of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, there was a palpable electricity in the air. In fact, even before the first note…
Visually arresting Candide from Welsh National Opera
In the light of today’s cultural, financial and social turmoil, Welsh National Opera’s new production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide is just the sort of tonic everyone needs. If its overworked…
Silver Stridencies of Sound: The Songs of Peter Wishart
Once again, a new release of world premiere recordings by Em Records has opened up a fertile path through the byways of English music, and there are rich rewards for…
Kazuki Yamada and the CBSO bring England and Japan into a wonderfully rewarding communion at Snape Maltings
We’ve become used to ‘hybrid’ meetings, where some members of a team meet in a workplace while others tune in from home, hotel rooms or elsewhere. Well, this is something…
The Queen of Spades at The Grange Festival
There’s nothing particularly Russian, or Slavic, about Paul Curran’s new production of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at The Grange Festival, though it’s heartening to see singers displaced from their…
Elgan Llŷr Thomas launches his debut disc, Unveiled, at Wigmore Hall
The press release for Unveiled, Welsh-born tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas’s debut disc, suggests that ‘as a gay musician and composer, [Thomas] became increasingly frustrated by opera’s traditional focus on heterosexual…