To say Glyndebourne and Le nozze di Figaro are linked is a huge understatement: it was Mozart’s opera, which many see to be the most perfect ever constructed, that launched…
Month: August 2025
Norma at Gstaad
Bellini’s Norma is one of the great operas; it is far more than just ‘Casta Diva’. And those UK readers who attended Chelsea Opera Group’s presentation of the same composer’s…
Zelmira, La cambiale di matrimonio, L’italiana in Algeri in Pesaro
The last of the Neapolitan tragic masterpieces, the very first farce, and the first of the famous comedies. The 2025 Rossini Opera Festival was of limited success. The success limited…
Wolf Trap Opera’s Carmen: Getting The Best Of Fate?
It felt appropriate walking up to Wolf Trap’s Filene Center on a sweaty August night for this one-night-only performance, considering that Bizet’s Carmen takes place in southern Spain. It’s a…
Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade’s Scenes from Under Milk Wood – Presteigne Festival
Established in 1983, the Presteigne Festival is renowned for the diversity and quality of its programming and, like previous seasons, continues its immersion in contemporary music. Within the Welsh border…
Joyce DiDonato and Michael Spyres Bring Vocal Glamor and Dramatic Insight to John Nelson’s Long-Awaited Recording of Berlioz’s Les Troyens
My apologies for not having posted this review online earlier. The recording was made back in 2017, and I reviewed it for American Record Guide. I should have thought to…
Proms 2025: Fabio Luisi and his Danish Forces Serve Up a Bright and Breezy Beethoven 9
Given that Beethoven’s final symphony normally has a playing time of just over an hour, what can you sensibly pair with it in the first half? Something else by Beethoven,…
Proms 2025: Pappano conducts Puccini and Strauss
It used to be a fairly rare treat to hear Suor Angelica, but of late there have been a number of significant stagings. Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten is rarer…
Proms 2025: A Mass of Life outlined in all its sumptuous beauty
Hailed by many commentators as a choral masterpiece, Delius’s A Mass of Life is an expansive choral extravaganza taking inspiration from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. The composer interprets the…
Giulio Cesare in Salzburg
Stage director Dimitri Tcherniakov sets Handel’s most performed opera in an air raid shelter (where else these days?), wittily deploying a direct hit on the shelter to announce Cleopatra’s scorching…