This is surely Sir Antonio Pappano’s “Wagner period”: his recent Siegfried, the latest instrument of an ongoing Ring at RBO revealed, to my ears at least, his finest Wagner to date. He has,…
Author: Colin Clarke
Handel’s Serse at Barbican
Most recently seen in March in a stunning Tamerlano at Shoreditch Town Hall as part of the 2026 London Handel Festival, Laurence Cummings and the Academy of Ancient Music now gave us…
125 years young: Wigmore Hall celebrates with Lise Davidsen
Happy “birth”- day to Wigmore Hall (inasmuch as bricks and mortar are birthed). On the hall’s actual 125th anniversary, it was Lise Davidsen and the equally astonishing collaborative pianist James…
Asmik Grigorian and Lukas Geniušas at Wigmore Hall
The Wigmore Hall’s 125th Anniversary Festival is shaping up well: in one day, the venue offered Jordi Savall at lunchtime and Asmik Grigorian in the evening, both (as far as…
Gangsta Salome: Richard Strauss in Bethnal Green
Perhaps fittingly, there is an establishment by the name of “Satan’s Whiskers” a mere one-minute walk from York Hall. Richard Strauss’s Salome is a visceral juxtaposition of the good (or…
An ‘authentic’ Rigoletto in Paris
Concert performances are often seen as pale imitations of the real thing, only one step behind that nebulous term, ‘semi-staged’. And yet, sometimes they remain memorable in their own right:…
Handel in Shoreditch: a Tamerlano Triumph
Those who attended Irish National Opera’s Bajazet at the Linbury Theatre will be familiar with the story here. Handel accorded titular status to Tamerlano; different librettos, though: Handel’s principally uses…
A Tale of Seven Climates: Tansy Davies’s The Passion of Mary Magdalene
Tansy Davies’s works rarely fail to stimulate: her opera Between Worlds focused on the Twin Towers attack, which I described at the time as ‘a personal triumph,’ while works such…
Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony at the RFH
There was a time when London’s walls were papered with Mahler 2s; certainly, in the 1980s, performances were regular occurrences with nary a month going by without one or other…
Telemann Old and New: Florilegium at Wigmore Hall
What a treat to hear a full concert of Telemann’s magnificent music. The dates of composition of the pieces span 30 + years: hence, “Telemann Old and New,” with the…