It’s quite refreshing to read the rationale for a period-instrument recording which closes with the statement that the conductor-author makes ‘no great claims for the authenticity’ of the project. But,…
Author: Claire Seymour
Mother, Sister, Daughter: Musica Secreta create a community of sisters through spiritual song
Musica Secreta’s co-director, Laurie Stras, relishes an archival detective hunt. The ensemble’s 2019 recording, From Darkness into Light, presented the fruits of Stras’s discovery of what she described as ‘seventeen…
Enoch Arden: a new recording of Richard Strauss’s melodrama from Christopher Kent and Gamal Khamis
Melodrama: literally, the joining of music (melos) and drama. The word has various connotations, though, relating to genre, method and expression. Denoting a work for narrator and instruments, and sometimes…
Chiaroscuro expressionism: Keith Warner’s Otello is revived at the Royal Opera House
Keith Warner’s Otello is a crucible of darkness and light. The minimalism of Warner’s conception and design seemed even more striking to me during the opening night of this second…
Kaleidoscope: in conversation with Fatma Said
kaleidoscope (OED): ‘an optical instrument containing pieces of coloured glass which may be rotated into constantly altering, brightly coloured, symmetrical figures and reflections; a constantly changing group of bright colours…
Glyndebourne’s landmark production of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers streaming on Glyndebourne Encore from 1 August
Opera lovers around the world will get their chance to see Glyndebourne’s landmark production of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers from Monday 1 August when a live film recording is released on the…
Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at Grange Park Opera
La Gioconda (1876) is a rare visitor to opera stages in the UK and this Grange Park Opera production, originally scheduled for the 2020 season, offers a welcome opportunity to…
Sumptuous artifice and sweet melancholy: Alcina at Glyndebourne
Lucidity is not a common characteristic of the Baroque opera libretto, and the anonymous text of Handel’s Alcina – drawn from an episode in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso – twists and…
Taking wing at the Royal College of Music: Jonathan Dove’s Flight
“I am stuck in Heathrow. Flight cancelled and no way, or no one, to tell me to leave the airport.” A Tweet by a frustrated passenger caught up in this…
Dragons and slayers: a new recording of Lampe’s burlesque opera The Dragon of Wantley from Resonus Classics
‘A dragon is no idle fancy. Whatever may be his origins, in fact or invention, the dragon in legend is a potent creation of men’s imagination, richer in significance than…