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…
Author: Colin Clarke
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…
Bach’s St John Passion with the AAM at the Barbican
How to approach the St John Passion? Certainly, I feel lucky to have experienced two proportions of epic power in recent years: Masaaki Suzuki and the Collegium Musicum Japan in…
London Handel Festival Double Bill: Tales of Apollo and Hercules
Quotations about – not from – myth festoon both stage (pre-performance) and the accompanying freesheet: ‘The lover of myth is in a sense a philosopher; for myth is composed of…
Renée Fleming sings Strauss
“Renée Fleming sings Strauss” shouted all the publicity for this concert, omitting to mention the program was 75% Wagner. Conductor Thomas Guggeis hardly got a look in, yet his successes…