You can literally count on the fingers of one hand the UK presentations of Martin?’s final opera, The Greek Passion: Welsh National Opera in 1981, Royal Opera in 2000 (both under Charles Mackerras), a revival four years later, and now this new production from Opera North.
Author: Claire Seymour
A thought-provoking ROH revival of Massenet’s Werther
I’ve always wondered whether Massenet’s Werther actually works as an opera at all. It’s a fundamentally uneven work from a dramatic viewpoint which just happens to have one of the most glorious musical scores of any nineteenth-century opera. How I wish Massenet had written something like Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony; alas, what we have is a reasonably short opera that can seem unbearably long – and with a tenor role which is almost invariably miscast.
Bampton Classical Opera: Bride & Gloom at St John’s Smith Square
Last week the Office of National Statistics published figures showing that in the UK the number of women getting married has fallen below 50%.
A new recording of Henze’s Das Flofl der Medusa
Henze’s Das Flofl der Medusa is in some ways a work with a troubled and turbulent history. It is defined by the time in which it was written – 1968 – a period of student protest throughout central Europe. Its first performance was abandoned because the Hamburg chorus refused to perform under the Red Flag which had been placed on stage; and Henze himself decided he wouldn’t conduct it at all after police stormed the concert hall to remove protesters, among them the librettist Ernst Schnabel.
Immortal Beloved: Beethoven Festival at Wigmore Hall
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Prom 74: Uplifting Beethoven from Andrew Manze and the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover
Ceremony, drama and passion: this Beethoven Night by the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover under their Chief Conductor Andrew Manze had all three and served them up with vigour and a compelling freshness, giving Prommers at this eve-of-Last-Night concert an exciting and uplifting evening.
Prom 69: Elena Stikhina’s auspicious UK debut in a dazzling Czech Philharmonic concert
Rarely can any singer have made such an unforgettable UK debut in just twelve minutes of music. That was unquestionably the case with the Russian soprano, Elena Stikhina, who in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Letter Scene from Eugene Onegin, sang with such compelling stage magnetism and with a voice that has everything you could possibly want.
Prom 68: Wagner Abend – Christine Goerke overwhelms as Br¸nnhilde
Wagner Nights at the Proms were once enormously popular, especially on the programmes of Sir Henry Wood. They have become less so, perhaps because they are simply unfashionable today, but this one given by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Marc Albrecht steered clear of the ‘bleeding chunk’ format which was usually the norm. It was still chunky, but in an almost linear, logical way and benefited hugely from being operatic (when we got to the Wagner) rather than predominantly orchestral.
2019 Wigmore Hall/Independent Opera International Song Competition
Russian bass-baritone Mikhail Timoshenko has won the top prize at the 2019 Wigmore Hall/Independent Opera International Song Competition.
In conversation with Nina Brazier
When British opera director Nina Brazier tries to telephone me from Frankfurt, where she is in the middle of rehearsals for a revival of Florentine Klepper’s 2015 production of Martin?’s Julietta, she finds herself – to my embarrassment – ‘blocked’ by my telephone preference settings. The technical hitch is soon solved; but doors, in the UK and Europe, are certainly very much wide open for Nina, who has been described by The Observer as ‘one of Britain’s leading young directors of opera’.