There could really only be one work with which Mark Padmore would conclude this season residency at Wigmore Hall, a series forming his final solo recitals at the Hall, but…
Author: Claire Seymour
London premiere of Tom Coult’s Violet at the Hackney Empire
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the starsDid wander darkling in the eternal space,Rayless, and pathless, and the ice earthSwung blind…
Die tote Stadt at Longborough Festival Opera
‘Bruges était sa morte. Et sa morte était Bruges.’ In his novella Bruges-la-Morte (1892), the Belgian symbolist author George Rodenbach makes clear the affinity between the ‘dead city’, Bruges, and…
PwC announces extended new two-year sponsorship of Wexford Factory as 2022/23 Factory Artists are unveiled
The new participants of the Wexford Factory have been announced. The brainchild of Wexford Festival Opera’s (WFO) Artistic Director, Rosetta Cucchi, the Wexford Factory is a professional academy for young…
Tamerlano at The Grange Festival: superb singing but somewhat staid production
One might say of Daniel Slater’s production of Handel’s Tamerlano at The Grange Festival that the staging offers nothing about which to complain and that the singing gives much to…
A double bill of Monteverdi and Weill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
The London Conservatoires frequently serve up some of the most interesting operatic fare in the capital: unusual programmes, often in eclectic pairings, presented in inventive stagings – and, of course,…
Bampton Classical Opera 2022: Handel’s Clori, Tirsi e Fileno
This autumn Bampton Classical Opera will be giving performances of Handel’s Clori, Tirsi e Fileno, one of his most extended and loveliest cantatas, at venues in Sussex, Oxfordshire and Surrey. Also known…
Monteverdi’s Orfeo at Garsington Opera
What is most striking about John Caird’s new production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo at Garsington Opera is the extent to which it reminds us that the humanist theories informing the aesthetic…
Missed chances and haunting memories: Eugene Onegin at Opera Holland Park
If the first night of Julia Burbach’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at Opera Holland Park marked the start of London’s summer opera season, it certainly didn’t mark the start…
Chelsea Opera Group present a superb Andrea Chénier at the Southbank
The 2022 summer opera season has been getting well and truly underway this week, with first nights at Opera Holland Park (Eugene Onegin) and Garsington (Orfeo), following Glyndebourne’s production of…