Francesca Zambello’s 2006 Covent Garden Carmen rehashed once again by San Francisco Opera. This time with French mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux in the title role. In 2017 alone Mme. Hubeaux transformed…
Why aligning yourself with Satanic forces is never a good idea: Staatsoper Hamburg’s new production of Der Freischütz
It’s not an uncommon experience for people to wake up in the middle of the night, believing they have heard unsettling noises, or feeling those early palpitations of concern about…
Everest by San Francisco’s Opera Parallèle
San Francisco’s alternative opera company has just now revived its 2021 production of Everest, a 2015 Dallas Opera commission about climbers on Mount Everest, here reimagined as a graphic novel…
Hurn Court Opera
HCO Singer of the Year Competition 2024, semi-finals and finals 2 Nov, St Swithun’s School, Winchester Last weekend saw the semi-finals and finals of the seventh HCO Singer of the…
ENO’s Rigoletto still makes dramatic sense
Jonathan Miller’s Mafioso-style Rigoletto, first unveiled in 1982, would seem to be imperishable and has returned yet again to the Coliseum. If the set has not already been infested with…
The Busoni Centenary: Kirill Gerstein and the BBC Chorus in Busoni’s genre-defying Piano Concerto at the Barbican
The centenary of Ferruccio Busoni’s death fell earlier this year, not that ninety-nine per cent of the musical world appears to have noticed. Where are the operas, even his masterpiece…
Fun and games in Vienna: the Guildhall’s Die Fledermaus
Beware the dangers of playing pranks on friends who might nurse their grudges until the right moment presents itself to seek redress. Revenge is after all a dish best served…
Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly gets its UK premiere
If any Puccini opera can evolve with the times it would probably be his Madama Butterfly. Indeed, it has been widely adapted to film – firstly by Fritz Lang in…
Young Fauré and his masters
Tenor Cyrille Dubois and pianist Tristan Raës are to make Wigmore Hall history in a five-year series of the complete songs of Gabriel Fauré. Dubois will be the first artist…
An engaging evening of fun demonstrating the very real virtues of Gilbert & Sullivan at its best
Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore presents several challenges, notably the technical one of bringing the ghosts of the ancestors out of their portraits and the more philosophical one of Victorian melodrama.…