There was a full house at St John’s Smith Square for La Nuova Musica’s presentation of Handel’s Alcina.
Author: Claire Seymour
Ermonela Jaho is an emotively powerful Violetta in ROH’s La traviata
Perhaps it was the ‘Blue Monday’ effect, but the first Act of this revival of Richard Eyre’s 1994 production of La Traviata seemed strangely ‘consumptive’, its energy dissipating, its ‘breathing’ rather laboured.
Vivaldi scores intriguing but uneven Dangerous Liaisons in The Hague
“Why should I spend good money on tables when I have men standing idle?” asks a Regency country squire in the British sitcom Blackadder the Third. The Marquise de Merteuil in OPERA2DAY’s Dangerous Liaisons would agree with him. Her servants support her dinner table, groaning with gateaux, on their backs.
Pl·cido Domingo awarded Honorary Fellowship of the International Opera Awards
A patron of the International Opera Awards since their inception, legendary tenor Pl·cido Domingo will receive the first ever Honorary Fellowship of the Opera Awards Foundation at a fundraising evening on Monday 28 January at the Royal Society of Arts, London.
Wexford Festival Opera Announces New Artistic Director
The Board of Wexford Festival Opera has announced Rosetta Cucchi as the new Artistic Director of the Festival. She will take up the six-year position when the current Artistic Director David Agler finishes his tenure after the 2019 Festival.
Opera as Life: Stefan Herheim’s The Queen of Spades at Covent Garden
‘I pitied Hermann so much that I suddenly began weeping copiously … [it] turned into a mild fit of hysteria of the most pleasant kind.’
Venus Unwrapped launches at Kings Place, with ‘Barbara Strozzi: Star of Venice’
‘Playing music is for a woman a vain and frivolous thing. And I would wish you to be the most serious and chaste woman alive. Beyond this, if you do not play well your playing will give you little pleasure and not a little embarrassment. … Therefore, set aside thoughts of this frivolity and work to be humble and good and wise and obedient. Don’t let yourself be carried away by these desires, indeed resist them with a strong will.’
Burying the Dead: Ceruleo offer ‘Baroque at the Edge’
“Who are you? And what are you doing in my bedroom?”
‘Sound the trumpet’: countertenor duets at Wigmore Hall
This programme of seventeenth-century duets, odes and instrumental works was meticulously and finely delivered by countertenors Iestyn Davies and James Hall, with The King’s Consort, but despite the beauty of the singing and the sensitivity of the playing, somehow it didn’t quite prove as affecting as I had anticipated.
Garsington Opera’s 30th anniversary season: four new productions including an Offenbach premiere
Garsington Opera’s 30th anniversary season will feature four new productions – the UK stage premiere of Offenbach’s Fantasio, Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and finally Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.