Author: Gary Hoffman

It must be the sea air. In Thomas Hardy’s vignette ‘The History of the Hardcomes’, two young women — quiet, gentle Emily Darth, and the more lively, rumbustious Olive Pawle — are betrothed to two cousins, James and Stephen Hardcome; but the quartet decide that they are paired up wrongly, and so ‘swap’ suitors, submitting to a moment of irrational infatuation.

This was a truly outstanding performance, thoroughly worthy of its standing ovation. The only problem now will be of upholding such standards throughout the Barbican’s Birtwistle at 80 series.

For its final production of the 2013-14 season Lyric Opera of Chicago featured Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito in a staging originating at the
Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, in co-production with the Théatre du Capitole de Toulouse and l’Opéra de Marseille.

The latest recital in the Songlives series at the Wigmore Hall turned the spotlight on a figure whose short compositional career and small oeuvre might have been expected to confine him to the margins of musical history, but whose name has in fact become almost synonymous with a whole genre of song: mÈlodie.

Manitoba Opera’s first production in nine years of Giacomo Puccini’s La BohËme still stirs the heart and inspires tears with its tragic tale of bohemian artists living — and loving — in 1840s Paris.

The company ends its 2013-14 season on a high note with a staged performance of Gershwin’s theatrical masterpiece

Lyric Opera of Chicago’s new production of Antonin Dvorak’s Rusalka is visually impressive and fulfills all possible expectations musically with unquestioned excitement.

This varied, demanding programme indisputably marked soprano Louise Alder as a name to watch.