‘And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ John Donne’s metaphysical meditation might have made a
fitting sub-title for Richard Jones’s new production of Musorgky’s Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House — the first
performance in the house of the original 1869 score.
Author: Gary Hoffman
Boris Godunov, Covent Garden
Ariodante, London Handel Festival
By the time that he composed Ariodante, which was first performed
in January 1735, Handel had more than three decades of opera-composing
experience behind him. It’s surely one of his greatest music dramas not
least because, adapted from Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando
Furioso, it is a very ‘human’ drama, telling of love and lust,
betrayal and healing.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night, London
Descending into the concrete cavern that is Ambika P3, at the University of
Westminster, I reflected that the bunker-like milieu was a fitting venue for
Royal Academy Opera’s production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s May
Night, which updated the original early-19th century locale to
the beginning of the Soviet era.
Entrancing Orlando at the Concertgebouw
The English Concert’s travelling Orlando has been collecting
rave reviews. Here’s another one from Amsterdam, the last stop on their
tour before Carnegie Hall.
Orlando at the Barbican
In 1728 Handel was down on his luck, following the demise of his ‘Royal
Academy’. Ever the entrepreneur, the following year he made a scouting tour of
Italy in search of the best singing talent and, returning with seven new virtuosos
— including the castrato Senesino.
Il trittico, Royal Opera
Strong revival for Richard Jones 2011 production with cast mixing returnees and dÈbutantes
A trip with Captain Haitink into Bruckner’s Cosmos
Last year for his 60th anniversary as conductor, Bernard Haitink celebrated with one of his first orchestra’s the Dutch Radio Philharmonic. That performance of Mahler’s Fourth turned out such a success, he returned for another round at the NTR Saturday Matinee at the Concertgebouw.
FÈlicien David: Herculanum
It is not often that a major work by a forgotten composer gets rediscovered
and makes an enormously favorable impression on today’s listeners. That has
happened, unexpectedly, with Herculanum, a four-act grand opera by
FÈlicien David, which in 2014 was recorded for the first time.
Music and the Exotic from the Renaissance to Mozart
In Musical Exoticism (Cambridge 2011) Ralph P. Locke undertook an
extensive appraisal of the portrayal of the ‘Other’ in works dating
from 1700 to the present day, an enquiry that embraced a wide range of genres
from Baroque opera to Algerian rap, and which was at once musical, cultural,
historical, political and ethical.