On the face of it music criticism has often seemed to me a very unimaginative profession. Take this BBCSO concert, for example, the programming of which has largely appeared to…
Author: Marc Bridle
Hurn Court Opera
HCO Singer of the Year Competition 2024, semi-finals and finals 2 Nov, St Swithun’s School, Winchester Last weekend saw the semi-finals and finals of the seventh HCO Singer of the…
Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly gets its UK premiere
If any Puccini opera can evolve with the times it would probably be his Madama Butterfly. Indeed, it has been widely adapted to film – firstly by Fritz Lang in…
Mahler in extremis: Ferocity and peace from Tilson Thomas and the LSO in the ‘Resurrection’
Sometimes when you listen to performances of the great symphonies – and Mahler’s Second is one of the greatest – your mind turns to other things. This can often be…
DiDonato’s compelling Death of Cleopatra opens a thrilling LPO concert
Vengeance and Death. Medea and Cleopatra. These were the themes that provided the opening works to the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s new season that will be devoted to Moments Remembered which…
PROM 56: Bruckner and God.
The BBC Singers and the Berliner Philharmoniker in motets and the Fifth Symphony Anton Bruckner was first and foremost a man of God. Much of what he composed was defined…
PROM 37: Pappano’s operatic War Requiem resonates with poetry and horror
Composers have long taken the horrors of the Second World War and used it as either a lament for its atrocities or an expression of reconciliation after them. Both Krzysztof…
PROM 9: Alice Coote sings Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder
This was a riveting concert. Brahms (in his most enigmatic of symphonies), Schoenberg (in one of his lushest of scores) and Mahler in one of his most profound of song…
PROM 6: A striking Verdi Requiem of blazing force and compelling drama
With this performance, the first given at the Proms since 2021, and twenty-second since its first outing in 1956, Verdi’s Requiem is now the most frequently performed non-operatic work I…
Further details announced for four groundbreaking opera and music theatre UK premieres at the Barbican this autumn
This autumn, the Barbican is delighted to host four groundbreaking new opera and music theatre projects that will receive their UK premieres this coming 2024-25 season. Opera and music theatre…