Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas is having a moment. And just now at Silicon Valley’s Opera San Jose it was a quite wonderful moment — well cast, smart production…
Year: 2024
“Birds and Balls” in San Francisco
Two recent one-acts cleverly combined by stage director Brian Staufenbiel into one grand, operatic sporting event. San Francisco’s alternative opera company, Opera Parallele pulled off a slam dunk show. It…
Some outstanding singing at the Royal Opera’s new Carmen
For any new staging of a work as familiar as Carmen there is an imperative to root out fresh perspectives, to pursue a previously unexplored angle; effectively to reinvent the…
Bach’s Easter Music from the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
If Holy week is usually a time for Christian meditation, this concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall given by the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment traded solemn…
A Mesmerising Death in Venice from Welsh National Opera
Like the protagonist in Thomas Mann’s eponymous novella, Benjamin Britten’s failing health made him keenly aware of his own mortality as he embarked upon one of the most challenging projects…
Welsh National Opera’s Così fan tutte
Dismissed by Beethoven and Wagner, Così fan tutte has taken nearly two centuries to emerge from society’s censor and for Mozart’s genius for expressing human nature through sublime music to…
McVicar’s Tristan und Isolde returns to the New National Theatre Tokyo
David McVicar’s production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, making a welcome return to the New National Theatre, Tokyo, was seen on March 20. The revival, the first since its widely…
Simon Boccanegra and The Exterminating Angel in Paris
Both operas staged by famed (for many) or infamous (for others) Spanish stage director Calixto Bieito. Both Parisian Bieito productions bore this stage director’s signature touches — a complex, abstract…
Stylish Performances from Trinity College Cambridge
The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge has built an unassailable reputation for the quality of its recordings. Amongst the discs under the choir’s ex Director of Music Stephen Layton, there…
A remarkable Duke Bluebeard’s Castle from ENO
It would be hard to imagine greater stress levels on the morning of the opening night of English National Opera’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle when soprano Allison Cook, scheduled to sing…