The choice of Il turco in Italia for Glyndebourne in May 2021 might have been made in recognition of its London premiere exactly two centuries earlier in May 1821 at…
Author: David Truslove
Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti / A Quiet Place at the Linbury theatre, Covent Garden – Riveting performances for Bernstein’s double bill, but his last opera remains largely unconvincing
Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti (1952) and A Quiet Place (1983) provide a fascinating glimpse of his stylistic development across some thirty years, seen through the lives of a dysfunctional family.…
Intensity of expression from Malin Byström at the Wigmore Hall
A recital programme as inviting as this from the acclaimed Swedish soprano would surely have attracted a full house for her Wigmore recital. A pity then to see so many…
Mixed performances within an austere Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House
Tchaikovsky’s tragic masterpiece can be presented with the minimum of means and on the smallest of scales, and this new production from American director Tedd Huffman, making his long-anticipated main…
PROM 59: ‘French Fantasy’
Performances of varying quality, but much to enjoy in a couple of premieres and some exhilarating Ravel. Music of solace and sensuality formed the twin peaks of this all-French programme…
PROM 50: A curate’s egg of an evening but a magnificent Glagolitic Mass
For the second of two consecutive appearances at the Albert Hall, Jakub Hrůša and his Prague-based orchestra delivered an all-Czech programme showcasing a Proms premiere, a seldom-heard piano concerto and…
The Turn of the Screw – a triumph for Waterperry Opera Festival
No better choice could have been conceived for Waterperry Opera’s first foray into a full-length Britten opera than The Turn of the Screw. And no better performance space for its…
PROM 23: Bravura performance of Busoni’s Piano Concerto from Benjamin Grosvenor
Those new to Ferruccio Busoni’s Piano Concerto might have wondered about his quasi-symphonic concept, a work of Mahlerian proportions that Benjamin Grosvenor considers to be a “kind of operatic symphony,…
PROM 19: Marking 150 years since Holst’s birth, The Cloud Messenger receives its Proms premiere
With an all-British programme bookended by Eastern influences, variously Buddhist and Sanskrit, this was one of those concerts that looked interesting on paper. The curiosity quota was high, but the…
Under the Greenwood Tree: an impressive operatic debut from Paul Carr and Dorset Opera
How we respond to Paul Carr’s operatic makeover of Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree will depend on how much we consider the author’s 1872 publication to be an examination…