Henry James’s 1898 novella expresses far more than the blurred lines arising from ghostly apparitions or the absence of moral absolutes. In Britten’s darkest opera the composer removes some of…
Month: October 2024
La battaglia di Legnano at Parma’s Verdi Festival gives cause to reflect on the human and animal cost of war
La battaglia di Legnano represents the climax of Verdi’s nationalist, Risorgimento era operas: composed during the period of widespread revolutionary fervour across Italy (and Europe) in 1848, it was premiered…
Tristan and Isolde in San Francisco
In the 1870’s Richard Wagner built a special theater for his operas, a theater where the words of his poems might flow clearly from the stage into the hall. One…
Mahler in extremis: Ferocity and peace from Tilson Thomas and the LSO in the ‘Resurrection’
Sometimes when you listen to performances of the great symphonies – and Mahler’s Second is one of the greatest – your mind turns to other things. This can often be…
Glyndebourne’s hilarious Il turco in Italia
The choice of Il turco in Italia for Glyndebourne in May 2021 might have been made in recognition of its London premiere exactly two centuries earlier in May 1821 at…
The New National Theatre Tokyo opens its season with Bellini’s La Sonnambula
The NNTT’s 2024/2025 season opened with Vincenzo Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece, La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker), seen on October 12. A co-production with Madrid’s Teatro Real, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu…
Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti / A Quiet Place at the Linbury theatre, Covent Garden – Riveting performances for Bernstein’s double bill, but his last opera remains largely unconvincing
Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti (1952) and A Quiet Place (1983) provide a fascinating glimpse of his stylistic development across some thirty years, seen through the lives of a dysfunctional family.…
Beethoven’s Fidelio at Lyric Opera of Chicago
For its second opera in the 2024-25 season Lyric Opera of Chicago has presented Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio. The role of Leonore, who has assumed the male identity Fidelio while…
In times of want: English National Opera’s La bohème
Away from all the bright lights, the mesmerising world of show business, there’s another world: the world of the poor, the needy and the downtrodden. Who ever thought such a…
Intensity of expression from Malin Byström at the Wigmore Hall
A recital programme as inviting as this from the acclaimed Swedish soprano would surely have attracted a full house for her Wigmore recital. A pity then to see so many…