English National Opera seem to be making a summer habit of popping up with Puccini in London’s palace-parks. After 2020’s hill-top drive-in La bohème at Alexandra Palace, this year the…
Author: Claire Seymour
Opera on Location bring Debussy’s The prodigal son home to Sheffield
Located in one of Sheffield’s oldest industrial districts, Kelham Island Museum stands on a man-made island, the result of 12th-century engineering when a goit, or mill race, was constructed diverting…
From 6pm tonight: Longborough Festival Opera streaming 2021 production of Die Walküre
Longborough Festival Opera will stream its 2021 concert production of Die Walküre from 6pm BST tonight.Watch here(Available on demand until Friday 25 February 2022) This concert production of Die Walküre was filmed live at Longborough…
Light from Darkness: Live from London Summer 2021 closes in celebratory style
As gentle as you have lived,have you died,too holy for sorrow!Let no eye shed a tearfor the spirit’s heavenly homecoming. The words of Friedrich Haug, commemorating the death of the…
This is not a lullaby: Dutch soprano Channa Malkin challenges and soothes
The Dutch soprano Channa Malkin explores aspects of motherhood and maternal love in This is not a lullaby, an album of songs by Mieczysław Weinberg, Sir John Tavener and her…
Les Talens Lyriques present an inspiring premiere recording of Lully’s Ballet royal de la Naissance de Vénus
In Le Maître a danser, a dance manual which was published in Paris in 1725, Pierre Rameau wrote of the saltatory prowess of the French King, Louis XIV (1643-1715) and…
I Fagiolini: Au naturel
I Fagiolini like a ‘hook’, and they’re expert at devising one. On this occasion it was a painting, or, rather, a series of paintings – The Four Seasons by Pieter…
Heartfelt: truth and directness from Roxanna Panufnik
This Signum Classics recording of a selection of Roxanna Panufnik’s chamber music, for varied vocal and instrumental forces, is titled Heartfelt – and it is indeed a generous programme, sincerely…
British Youth Opera: a superb cast shine in Rossini’s L’occasione fa il ladro
Rossini’s libretti often require one to leave logic at the theatre entrance and embrace the absurd – stock buffa characters, stolen and switched identities, arranged marriages, double nuptials, an inevitable…
A trio of operas by Gustav Holst at the 2021 Leeds Opera Festival
Gustav Holst completed nine operas. They span his compositional career. None were commissioned; several were not performed in his lifetime; most did not meet with critical acclaim. Few would consider…