Nicolas Joel’s 2016 production of Massenet’s Werther made a welcome return to Tokyo’s New National Theatre for its third revival, seen on 30 May. High expectations surrounded this revival, which…
Year: 2026
A powerful and moving La fanciulla del West opens Opera Holland Park’s season
Despite its large cast, the drama of La fanciulla del West (1910) is ultimately one of the more intimate of Puccini’s operas, centred on the love triangle between Minnie, owner of the…
Doubt in San Francisco
Chamber opera on a grand scale, such was San Francisco’s alternative opera company, Opera Parallèlel’s Doubt — two nuns, and a priest and the mother of a gay black male…
Doomed from the Start: the Fate of Dido and Aeneas in Purcell’s Opera
The balcony scene of Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet includes Juliet telling Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.” Names matter…
An Evening of Wagner: The LSO and Sir Simon Rattle in tremendous form
It is rather extraordinarily more than twenty years since I last heard Sir Simon Rattle conduct Wagner (Parsifal at the Proms) so this ‘An Evening of Wagner’ was a great opportunity…
Asmik Grigorian and Lukas Geniušas at Wigmore Hall
The Wigmore Hall’s 125th Anniversary Festival is shaping up well: in one day, the venue offered Jordi Savall at lunchtime and Asmik Grigorian in the evening, both (as far as…
Milan on the Euphrates: Verdi’s Nabucodonosor at Teatro alla Scala
Riccardo Chailly’s tenure as Music Director of Teatro alla Scala is ending. Myung-Whun Chung will take over later this year. Over the past decade, Chailly has conducted one Verdi opera…
Rattle Returns to the LSO with Gerhard, Richard Strauss and Mahler
Vocal qualities matter enormously. Not just when it comes to the process of casting in the opera house, but when radically different items are programmed together in concert. I have…
Vive la Révolution à Wilmington!
Opera Delaware has served up such a bloody good, full-throated rendition of Giordano and Illica’s Andrea Chénier, that the cheering audience could not have been more boisterous in its rapturous…
INseries Artistic Director Timothy Nelson on The Song of Sakuntala
A work of art a lifetime in the making, this month INseries presents artistic director Timothy Nelson’s The Song of Sakuntala, with music composed by him and texts by Sarojini…