To celebrate Maria Callas’ centenary, her historical performance has been fully restored for the first time in colour, exclusively for the big screen. In her centenary year Volf Productions and…
Author: Claire Seymour
‘Grand passions and great singing’: Christof Loy’s La forza del destino returns to Covent Garden
This was an evening of big voices and grand theatrical vision. When Christof Loy’s production of Verdi’s La forza del destino was first seen at the Royal Opera House, in…
King Stakh’s Wild Hunt: ambitious, provocative, probing music theatre from Belarus Free Theatre
Belarus Free Theatre’s world premiere production at the Barbican Theatre of King Stakh’s Wild Hunt is stunning, sometimes bewildering and absolutely immersing: a sort of dramatic cross-breeding of the worlds…
At the Venice Fair: Bampton Classical Opera bring a Salieri premiere to St John’s Smith Square
Opera-in-the-garden can be rather a hit-and-miss affair, given the vagaries of an English summer. One night the sky is blue, the sun is benevolently warm, the breeze brushes gently and…
‘Celebrating Women Baroque Composers’: Roberta Invernizzi at Wigmore Hall
Early developments in print technology reveal much about women’s involvement in musical life and composition in the Renaissance and early Baroque. The earliest extant published music by a woman is…
La ciociara at Wexford Festival Opera: in conversation with conductor Francesco Cilluffo
Women & War is the theme uniting the works being performed at the 72nd Wexford Festival Opera next month. The three main productions in the Irish National Opera House each…
555: Verlaine en prison: a tender and troubled portrait of poetic profundity at the Arcola Theatre
‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotonous languor.’ The first lines of Paul Verlaine’s ‘Chanson d’automne’ exemplify the poignant melancholy of Verlaine’s poetry…
Maltworms and Milkmaids: a new recording of Warlock’s orchestral music and songs
During his tragically short life, Peter Warlock – the pen name used by Philip Heseltine (1894-1930) – composed around 119 solo songs, 23 choral works (some unaccompanied and others with…
Late-night Bach at the Proms: Iestyn Davies and the English Concert
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, published just prior to this late-night Prom with The English Concert led by director Kristian Bezuidenhout from the harpsichord, countertenor Iestyn Davies tells…
Donizetti’s Zoraida di Granata at Wexford Festival Opera: in conversation with director Bruno Ravella
In 1822, the 24-year-old Gaetano Donizetti had his first major success when his opera Zoraida di Granata was premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. The characteristically duplicitous efforts of…