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,…
Author: David Truslove
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…
An Enchanting, Must-See Magic Flute from ENO
Entertainment does not come much more laugh-out-loud than English National Opera’s current run of The Magic Flute, now in its third revival, and notwithstanding recent machinations over the company’s future.…
Benjamin Britten’s Canticles at the Temple Church
This first vocal recital of the year at the Temple Church featured all five of Britten’s Canticles, works spanning nearly three decades and closely connected to the operas from the…
Tosca returns to the Royal Opera House
For a successful theatre production to work well, Puccini once asserted, there were three fixed laws. He claimed these should be a necessity ‘to interest, to surprise, to move’. This…
The Handmaid’s Tale returns to English National Opera
Nearly upended by a proposed strike from ENO musicians, which was averted for the opening night, the revival of this production of Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale, first unveiled in…