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…
Author: Marc Bridle
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…
Tosca Revived: Angel Blue, Russell Thomas and Andrea Battistoni at the Royal Opera
The Royal Opera’s venerable production of Tosca – now in its seventeenth revival – is still a great one, but after my third visit in five or so years I…
Revolutions: A magical evening of six new operas by young composers at the Royal College of Music
Often a reviewer’s evening spent at the opera has little to do with the future of the art – arguably, we might sometimes be thinking it is the opposite. The…
Jurowski’s London Philharmonic Ring comes to a magnificent end with Götterdämmerung
Life can sometimes imitate art and in the case of this concert performance of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung that has certainly been so. Originally scheduled for 2021, at the end of Vladimir…
Poulenc’s Gloria in an all-French programme with the BBCSO at the Barbican
It is, I think, worth quoting the first paragraph of the booklet notes for the section on Francis Poulenc’s Gloria, the second work on this BBC Symphony Orchestra concert: ‘I…
Wagner’s 1877 Grand Festival makes a thrilling return to the Albert Hall
In May 1877, Richard Wagner brought to London, for eight concerts, what would become known as Wagner’s Grand Festival. The year before, Der Ring des Niebelungen had been heard for…
Rouvali falls short: Uninspired Verdi opens the Philharmonia’s new season
The Philharmonia Orchestra is no stranger to offering Verdi’s Requiem as either a work to open a season – or to close it (or anywhere in between). Many of its…
Glowing Wagner and Mahler’s Fourth from Vladimir Jurowski and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester
I first heard the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the early 1980s – and one’s earliest memories, of ones first orchestras, often remain long over time. Wolfgang Sawallisch – never a favourite…
From Darkness to Light: Barbara Hannigan opens the LSO’s new season at the Barbican
The London Symphony Orchestra was the first of the major orchestras to open their autumn season in September. Unlike their brethren across the Thames (to the south), they chose not…