Jamie Manton’s production of The Magic Flute for the Royal Academy of Music takes its cue from Tamino’s predicament at the opera’s opening – wounded and in mortal danger. Accordingly,…
Author: Curtis Rogers
On Haydn’s desert island at the Paris Opera
L’isola disabitata (The Uninhabited Island) is a comparatively late opera by Haydn, or rather an azione teatrale, which calls for only four soloists and an intimate setting. Indeed, it may…
An unconventional, satirical take on Weber’s Der Freischütz for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen at Antwerp
Weber’s Der Freischütz is well-known – and variously admired or deplored – as one of the seminal works of German musical Romanticism. Despite its fame and influence, it isn’t now…
A simple, effective staging of a Thea Musgrave’s politically intricate opera Mary, Queen of Scots
Given the obsession with the Tudors – particularly as TV, stage or literary drama, as well as historical documentary – it makes for a welcome variation on this subject that…
La battaglia di Legnano at Parma’s Verdi Festival gives cause to reflect on the human and animal cost of war
La battaglia di Legnano represents the climax of Verdi’s nationalist, Risorgimento era operas: composed during the period of widespread revolutionary fervour across Italy (and Europe) in 1848, it was premiered…
La Fenice’s Turandot emphasises the opera’s mythical element
The rich, vivid score, and dramatic – even sensational and violent – scenario of Puccini’s last opera (not quite complete at his death exactly one hundred years ago, in 1924)…
La Fenice’s double bill of short operas by father-in-law and son-in-law
By happy coincidence 2024 is an anniversary year for both Arnold Schoenberg (born 1874) and his son-in-law Luigi Nono (born 1924). Judging from the lack of works by either composer…
Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade is wittily and slickly recreated by Vache Baroque
As with so many librettos by Pietro Metastasio, L’Olimpiade was set numerous times during the 18th century. Like Vivaldi’s version (which audiences in London have also had the chance to…
The Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago springs a surprise in the composer’s final opera with its homage to the premiere’s abrupt conclusion
2024 is the centenary anniversary of Puccini’s death, and so it makes sense that the prominent festival of the composer’s operas at Torre del Lago (the Tuscan lakeside resort where…
Longborough Festival’s La bohème doesn’t fail to tug at the heartstrings
Good summer weather outside may have coincided with this run of La bohème, but Sarah Fahie’s production reminds us that Acts One and Two are set at Christmas Eve, with…