Had it not been for King Henry VIII, England would have remained a Catholic country and the course of English, and later British, history would have been very different. Had…
Author: Alexander Hall
Double, double toil and trouble: a witches’ cauldron in Royal Opera’s Il Trovatore
There are some people who still believe in witches and the power of superstition. Jumping from an allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the above title to Hamlet’s declaration to Horatio…
Shaking it all up with English Touring Opera’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi
You can take the same basic idea with all its dramatic potential, but don’t ever expect it always to turn out successful, even though you adhere to the same basic…
Of loneliness, dragons and heroics: Wagner’s Siegfried in a staging by Regents Opera
Nobody should ever assume that creative artists constantly engage in mutual back-slapping. Tolstoy’s verdict on Wagner’s Siegfried, the second day of the Ring cycle, was vicious: “A stupid puppet show…
Mendelssohn and Brahms: a rarity and a staple in the choral repertory
Amateur choral societies are much more likely to venture into lesser known areas of the choral repertory without worrying about the box-office appeal which binds many other promoters. So it…
A domestic drama as good as any: Wagner’s Die Walküre in the Regents Opera Ring
A kitchen sink drama really is nothing new. It’s been around for as long as human beings have been inhabiting a shared domestic space. The first act of Wagner’s Die…
Das Rheingold kicks off Regents Opera’s Ring in a ring
Everything about Wagner is big – very big. The instrumentation for the preliminary evening of Der Ring der Nibelungen alone encompasses eight horns doubling on Wagner tubas, seven harps and…
Treachery and lechery in English National Opera’s new The Marriage of Figaro
I’ve always found it strange that in the English language the title of one of the most popular pieces in the repertory is rendered as The Marriage of Figaro. The…
A disconcerting new Ariadne auf Naxos at Hamburg State Opera
The problem with all myths is that there is no such thing as an Urtext. They’re handed down from one generation to the next, and it’s a very long stretch from…
The Nash Ensemble celebrate 60 years in and with style
There are few composers with an innate ability to write so captivatingly for the human voice as Richard Strauss. Towards the very end of his career, in 1947, he offered…