Seen for the first time at Glyndebourne, this Merry Widow is a stylish romp that, in the hands of director Cal McCrystal, recalls the best of Broadway. Glamorous sets and…
Author: David Truslove
Yale Schola Cantorum bring fire and refinement to Bach’s Mass in B minor
The official website for Yale Schola Cantorum (part of Connecticut’s Ivy League research university) somewhat matter-of-factly describes the group as “a chamber choir that performs sacred music from the sixteenth…
Thrilling singing from Tenebrae in Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles
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,…
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…