Clori, Tirsi e Fileno is one of Handel’s many ‘dramatic cantatas’, composed during his Italian sojourn of 1706-10 and performed in the private homes and palaces of wealthy patrons, to…
Year: 2023
Lohengrin in San Francisco
This is the excellent David Alden 2018 production from Covent Garden. Here is how it fared at the War Memorial Opera House. It fit like a glove due to strong…
Dame Sarah Connolly Masterclass
Every month, OperaVision sets out to meet young artists around the world and give them a platform by streaming new performances, documentaries, concerts, masterclasses and podcasts. This time we are…
The Britten Sinfonia celebrate Britten at Snape Maltings
On 15 October 1943, Britten’s for tenor, horn and strings received its premiere at Wigmore Hall, performed by Peter Pears, Dennis Brain and a string ensemble conducted by Walter Goehr. …
The Ivors Classical Awards 2023: celebrating creative excellence
The Ivors Academy have today [18 October] announced the 34 composers who have been nominated for an Ivor Novello Award as part of The Ivors Classical Awards 2023, celebrating the…
A hard and heartless Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House
One of my opera-loving friends, a singer and musician herself and a regular devotee of both opera and ballet at the Royal Opera House and elsewhere, never attends performances of…
Cal McCrystal’s Iolanthe is revived at English National Opera
The curtain lifts to reveal a land of fairies: trailing vines, enormous flowers, rainbow-tinted lights. As W.S. Gilbert writes later on, it all looks like something from ‘Andersen’s library’. This…
Magdalena Kožená and Mitsuko Uchida at Wigmore Hall
One performer exudes profundity of thought and subtlety of rhetoric: acute attention to detail, technical finesse and delicate restraint characterise her musicianship. The other has a voice which glows with…
International Opera Awards 2023 Shortlist Announced
The International Opera Awards has today [11 October 2023] announced the shortlist for this year’s Awards, which will be held at Teatr Wielki, Polish National Opera, Warsaw on Thursday 9 November. The International Opera Awards celebrate…
MacMillan, Tavener & Vaughan Williams: the Choir of Westminster Abbey
In its century-spanning traversal of sacred music, this recent issue from Hyperion and the Choir of Westminster Abbey – the last recording from the recently retired Director of Music James…