Superb conducting from veteran Croatian maestro Niköa Bareza makes up for an absurd waterlogged new production of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece.
Author: Gary Hoffman
Nabucco in Novi Sad
After the horrors of Jagoö Markovi?’s production of Le Nozze di
Figaro in Belgrade, I was apprehensive lest Nabucco in Serbia’s
second city of Novi Sad on 27th October would be transplanted from
6th century BC Babylon to post-Saddam Hussein Tikrit or some
bombed-out kibbutz in Beersheba.
L’elisir d’amore, Royal Opera
This third revival of Laurent Pelly’s production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore needed a bit of a pep up to get moving but once it had been given a shot of ‘medicinal’ tincture things spiced up nicely.
Samling Showcase, Wigmore Hall
Founded in 1996, Samling describes itself as a charity which ‘inspires musical excellence in young people’.
The Met mounts a well sung but dramatically unconvincing ‘Carmen’
Should looks matter when casting the role of the iconic temptress for HD simulcast?
Maurice Greene’s Jephtha
Maurice Greene (1696-1755) had a highly successful musical career. Organist of St. Paul’s Cathedral, a position to which he was elected when he was just 22 years-old, he later became organist of the Chapel Royal, Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge and, from 1735, Master of the King’s Music.
Antonin Dvo?·k: The Cunning Peasant (äelma Sedl·k)
What an enjoyable opportunity to encounter Dvo?·k’s sixth opera, äelma Sedl·k∏or The Cunning Peasant!
Idomeneo, Royal Opera
Whether biblical parable or mythological moralising, it’s all the same really: human hubris, humility, sacrifice and redemption.
La bohËme, ENO
Jonathan Miller’s production of La bohËme for ENO, shared with Cincinnati Opera, sits uneasily, at least as revived by Natascha Metherell, between comedy and tragedy.