PROM 27: Towards the celestial region in Saariaho, Mozart and Richard Strauss

Religion has much to answer for, not least in the range of musical inspiration it has delivered over the ages. In the 1960s people were drawn to southern Mexico to…

Opera Holland Park’s new staging of The Barber of Seville provides food for thought

Ingénues might be forgiven for wondering why Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville isn’t named after the romantic hero who fights tooth and nail to win the object of his…

Staatsoper Hamburg’s new production of Il Trovatore is a hit-and-miss affair.

Modern stage directors famously like to shake things up. Immo Karaman, directing Hamburg’s new production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, has two guiding principles in the frame: this is an opera…