Minimalism in the Commonwealth of Virginia — an iconic opera in rarefied format achieved a powerful presence. Maestro Jorge Parodi’s orchestra of single winds, two horns, strings 3,2,1,2,1, piano, timpani…
Year: 2025
Seamless, genial comedy for Glyndebourne’s The Barber of Seville
This revival of Annabel Arden’s production of The Barber of Seville for Glyndebourne happily falls within the same season in which its sequel The Marriage of Figaro will also be…
Weill’s Der Protagonist in Venice
The recent run of Kurt Weill’s Der Protagonist at Venice’s Teatro Malibran offered a welcome opportunity to hear a great composer’s first and unjustly neglected opera. While its premiere in…
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown: Opera North’s Simon Boccanegra
What links Verdi with Shakespeare is a keen awareness of the distinction that needs to be made between the public and the private man: an individual may project a particular…
What comes after the very end? Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde offers some answers
Some composers, like Dvořák for instance, seemed at home in whichever genre they chose to write. Mahler, by contrast, though he repeatedly wrote for the human voice, never attempted an…
Glyndebourne’s musically gripping Parsifal
Directors have a habit of interfering with composers’ intentions in their efforts to draw out new perspectives. That’s no bad thing when a novel approach creates insightful correspondences with the…
A choral and orchestral extravaganza from The Lighthouse, Poole
Hats off to David Hill for overseeing the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s last hurrah of the season with three career-defining works that changed the musical landscape in both Britain and the…
Gustavo Dudamel conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in Strauss and Ravel
We often get reminded that a review is just one person’s opinion. In this particular instance, I am going to be shamelessly subjective rather than assume some kind of position…
Samantha Clarke returns to The Grange Festival next month as Violetta Valéry in a new production of Verdi’s La traviata.
David Truslove talks to Samantha about her developing career DT I believe you describe yourself as Australian/British. Where were you born and where do you consider home? SC My parents…
RAM students’ powerful and vivid enactment of Britten’s Biblical drama The Burning Fiery Furnace
The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) is the second of Britten’s Church Parables, based on an episode from the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament. Its immediate literary inspiration is…