Hurn Court Opera has come a long way since its creation by founder Lynton Atkinson in 2017. Established to showcase the talents of emerging singers on the threshold of their…
Author: David Truslove
A Musically Superb Flying Dutchman from Welsh National Opera
A woman in labour, a birth and a death launch this new production of Wagner’s first mature opera about the legendary Dutchman condemned to sail the seas until a wife…
East and West meet at Opéra Bastille with Nixon in China
There can be few, if any, operas which feature a grand gathering of table-tennis players. Bizaare that may be, it’s not so unreasonable if you’re aware of the link between…
Fun-Filled and Pocket-Sized Gianni Schicchi from OperaUpClose
Dead bodies are the stuff of operas. No less so with Puccini in this vividly reimagined Gianni Schicchi which begins with a just dead but still-warm corpse lying in a…
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s Temple to Consumerism Consolidated in English National Opera’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
First performed in Leipzig in 1930 within the shadow of the Weimar Republic, the clue to Brecht and Weill’s dystopian opera lies in its title. There was nothing in this…
The UK Premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Climate-Motivated unEarth Attempts to Pack a Significant Message, but Musically Feels Limp
We’ve been there before with protest music or music aiming to generate change. And music can prompt desired responses – environmental, social or political – including works like Haydn’s ‘Farewell’…
Strong Personalities Enliven ENO’s HMS Pinafore
Not so much a fearsome man-o’-war, this HMS Pinafore was more a tea clipper with a crew of jolly tars that could have come straight from the long-running radio series…
Agenda-Driven Les Noces de Figaro at the Palais Garnier Undermines any Humour
I sometimes wonder if directors actually like music or even the operas they agree to stage. This reboot of Netia Jones’s 2022 Les Noces de Figaro is a reminder of…
Handel and Scarlatti in Compare and Contrast Programme from Les Paladins at the Musée de l’Armée, Paris
Established in 2001, the French period instrument ensemble Les Paladins specialises in the performance and recording of rarely performed Baroque repertoire. The name derives from Rameau’s last comédie lyrique, and…
An enchanting Didon et Énée from the Château de Versailles by Opéra Royal
How often do we see a fully staged performance of Purcell’s only opera where English music and French spectacle combine to such striking effect? If a production could be termed…