Author: Gary Hoffman

From the bombastic sweeps of Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, to the
blissful rhapsodies of Walton’s Violin Concerto, and through the rhythmic
surges of Prokofiev’s choral manifesto of socialist realism, conductor Andris
Nelsons fizzed — indeed, almost exploded with energy and zest — and
inspired clarity, control and freshness from the City of Birmingham Symphony
Orchestra, on this their only visit to the Proms this season.

In the modern operatic world, respect for the oeuvre of any given composer, as well as his stylistic development and placement in operatic history, is sacrosanct.

Rodelinda is about as serious an opera as any that Handel wrote: attempted regicide and infanticide, violent death, betrayal and a marriage sorely tried.

It’s always a good idea to ferret away a sure-fire winner amongst the rarities, and Opera Holland Park’s Rigoletto certainly meets, and in some aspects surpasses, expectations.

This year’s venture for the annual Boston Midsummer Opera is an elegant reading of Rossini’s fizzy masterpiece of 1813, l’Italiana in Algeri.

There’s hell to pay for profligate publicity; Giuseppe Verdi and Francisco Maria Piave knew this to be true.

Not only did Verdi’s Requiem make its debut, rather remarkably, in the church of San Marco in Milan but the performance was as a liturgical one; Verdi’s intentions were quite firmly to provide a memorial mass for the Italian patriot, Manzoni.