First performed on January 20, 1699, André Campra’s comic opera/ballet to a libretto by Jean-François Regnard finally arrives at its UK premiere in late Summer 2025 at the Vache Baroque…
Author: Colin Clarke
Alexander’s Feast at the Proms
Performances of Handel’s Alexander’s Feast don’t come along too often; much less the Dublin version of 1742, meticulously recreated here by Peter Whelan, the conductor/director of Irish Baroque, and Donald…
Le nozze di Figaro at the Proms
To say Glyndebourne and Le nozze di Figaro are linked is a huge understatement: it was Mozart’s opera, which many see to be the most perfect ever constructed, that launched…
Norma at Gstaad
Bellini’s Norma is one of the great operas; it is far more than just ‘Casta Diva’. And those UK readers who attended Chelsea Opera Group’s presentation of the same composer’s…
Proms 2025: Pappano conducts Puccini and Strauss
It used to be a fairly rare treat to hear Suor Angelica, but of late there have been a number of significant stagings. Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten is rarer…
Proms 2025: Le Concert Spirituel and Hervé Niquet
This should be what the Proms is all about. ‘Super-size me,’ said Cosimo I de’ Medici when asking for music (probably not a direct quote); and there is certainly a…
A Mafia Widow: Lehár’s ever-popular score undergoes a transplant
It’s been a while: well, over 40 years, since I heard Lehár’s Die lustige Witwe, in an amdram production just outside of Manchester in which I was playing French horn.…
Enchantresses: Sandrine Piau at Wigmore Hall
Sandrine Piau’s recent Alpha disc (also Enchantresses) was mostly re-enacted in front of us (with a signing afterwards) for this remarkable concert at Wigmore Hall. The instrumental group used was…
Handel’s Jephtha at the Barbican
Handel’s last oratorio presents, as amongst the composer’s catalogue of undeniable masterpieces, a masterwork of stunning stature. Not a note is misplaced in Jephtha: long though it is (more of…
Multitudes: Mahler – Symphony Nr.8 with the LPO
Any Mahler Eighth Symphony is an occasion. It is an unwieldy, but nevertheless impressive behemoth of a piece. Interestingly enough, my most recent encounter with the symphony was also with…