Forming a choral centrepiece at the Newbury Spring Festival, Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles was given an inspirational outing by the internationally acclaimed ensemble Tenebrae at Douai Abbey in Woolhampton,…
Author: David Truslove
A sensational Salomé from Lise Davidsen at Opéra Bastille
Over a century after its 1905 Dresden premiere, Richard Strauss’s Salomé still has the capacity to disturb. Given that audiences have pretty much seen everything on the operatic stage, should…
Rapturous reception of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in Poole
“Who’d have thought it could happen in Poole” voiced one overawed audience member. He was not referring to the standing ovation, although that in itself was exceptional, but the outstanding…
Mixed Performances of Mendelssohn from the OAE
Judging by a revelatory all-Mendelssohn concert recently heard at the Anvil, Basingstoke with Sir András Schiff and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, I had every reason to assume…
A sensational Nadine Sierra in Lucia di Lammermoor at the ROH
The periodic frustration one might feel with Katie Mitchell’s split stage concept for Donizetti’s romantic tragedy is a small price to pay for some stupendous singing. First unveiled in 2016,…
Some outstanding singing at the Royal Opera’s new Carmen
For any new staging of a work as familiar as Carmen there is an imperative to root out fresh perspectives, to pursue a previously unexplored angle; effectively to reinvent the…
Bach’s Easter Music from the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
If Holy week is usually a time for Christian meditation, this concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall given by the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment traded solemn…
Welsh National Opera’s Così fan tutte
Dismissed by Beethoven and Wagner, Così fan tutte has taken nearly two centuries to emerge from society’s censor and for Mozart’s genius for expressing human nature through sublime music to…
Stylish Performances from Trinity College Cambridge
The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge has built an unassailable reputation for the quality of its recordings. Amongst the discs under the choir’s ex Director of Music Stephen Layton, there…
A remarkable Duke Bluebeard’s Castle from ENO
It would be hard to imagine greater stress levels on the morning of the opening night of English National Opera’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle when soprano Allison Cook, scheduled to sing…