From a sonic walk to a football-inspired opera, works based on ancient classics to murder mysteries, Tête à Tête continues to hold a safe space for artists to boldly tell…
Author: Claire Seymour
Songs of nostalgic love from Marie-Laure Garnier, Célia Oneto Bensaid and the Hanson Quartet
– This disc, released on the B-records label earlier this year, preserves a live performance given by the French-Guianan soprano Marie-Laure Garnier, the French pianist Célia Oneto Bensaid and the…
Woman at Point Zero at the Royal Opera House
Nawal El Saadawi’s 1975 novel, Woman at Point Zero, presents an ‘eve of death-row’ narrative which is a chilling indictment of patriarchal society. An Egyptian woman, Firdaus, has been convicted…
UK premiere of Barnum’s Bird at the Royal College of Music
‘I believe hugely in advertising and blowing my own trumpet, beating the gongs, drums, to attract attention to a show.’ So wrote Phineas Taylor Barnum to a publisher in 1860, adding, ‘As…
Bampton Classical Opera Young Singers’ Competition 2023 Announcement
Bampton Classical Opera Young Singers’ Competition 2023 – Entries now Open Public Final: Saturday 25 November, 6pmLeonard Wolfson Auditorium, Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford, OX2 6UD Applications are now open…
English Touring Opera begin new era with Robin Norton-Hale at the helm
English Touring Opera’s General Director, Robin Norton-Hale, launches the ETO’s new era with an ambitious season that places innovation and excellence at the heart of the company’s work. Norton-Hale, who assumed leadership…
Elgan Llŷr Thomas launches his debut disc, Unveiled, at Wigmore Hall
The press release for Unveiled, Welsh-born tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas’s debut disc, suggests that ‘as a gay musician and composer, [Thomas] became increasingly frustrated by opera’s traditional focus on heterosexual…
Silver Stridencies of Sound: The Songs of Peter Wishart
Once again, a new release of world premiere recordings by Em Records has opened up a fertile path through the byways of English music, and there are rich rewards for…
Kazuki Yamada and the CBSO bring England and Japan into a wonderfully rewarding communion at Snape Maltings
We’ve become used to ‘hybrid’ meetings, where some members of a team meet in a workplace while others tune in from home, hotel rooms or elsewhere. Well, this is something…
In conversation with the Brazilian baritone, Vitor Bispo
When I attended Royal Academy Opera’s Figaro back in March, Vitor Bispo’s authoritative Count Almaviva caught my ear and eye. Subsequently, it was not surprising to learn that the Brazilian…