Though firmly established as a theatre director – he is an Associate Artist of the RSC whose production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show has been touring for nearly 20…
Year: 2025
Tchaikovsky’s disturbing but gripping Mazeppa at Grange Park
Scenes of torture, execution and bleak rows of coffins may not be the cheeriest of hors d’oeuvres before your interval bubbly. This is Grange Park Opera’s new staging of Tchaikovsky’s…
Sin, death and love: English sonnets with David Butt Philip
If you want an intellectual challenge, then power your way through the sonnets of John Donne, the leading exemplar of the school of Metaphysical Poets, as I and many other…
Idomeneo in San Francisco
To make a long story short, Ilia loves Idamande but can’t admit it. Elektra loves Idamante and admits it. Idomeneo loves his son Idamante but promised Neptune that he would…
La bohème in San Francisco [2025]
La bohème has played in forty-eight of San Francisco Opera’s 102 seasons. In fact, back in 1923 it was the inaugural piece of this grand old American opera company. Here’s…
Gothic horror meets Sigmund Freud in Saint-Saëns’s The Silver Bell at Winchester’s Theatre Royal
Of Camille Saint-Saëns’s thirteen operas, only Samson and Dalila remains a regular part of the repertory. So, the enterprising New Sussex Opera must be congratulated on presenting the UK premiere…
Enchantresses: Sandrine Piau at Wigmore Hall
Sandrine Piau’s recent Alpha disc (also Enchantresses) was mostly re-enacted in front of us (with a signing afterwards) for this remarkable concert at Wigmore Hall. The instrumental group used was…
Der Ring des Nibelungen at Theater Basel
Richard Wagner’s epic artistic extravaganza, Der Ring des Nibelungen, is a bucket list item for some and an obsession for others aching for immersion into its mix of myth and reality, while…
Handel’s Saul at Glyndebourne
I found myself listening at home to Saul a few months ago (Charles Mackerras’s outstanding Leeds Festival recording with Donald McIntyre, James Bowman, Margaret Price, et al.). It made for…
A richly imagined and musically compelling Simon Boccanegra from Grange Park Opera
The Viennese critic Edward Hanslick once compared Brahms’ Fourth Symphony to “a dark well”, and declared “the longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back”. Such…