The Quebquois-born composer Claude Vivier – still largely neglected, despite many of his works having an almost fearless intensity entirely relevant for today – was the subject of a rare…
Author: Marc Bridle
Baroque pornography in Alexis Piron’s Vasta, Reine de Bordélie
One of the more enduring pleasures of having had a classical education – at least if you still remember it – is reading the richness of its literature: from Homer…
Exile and Isolation: Julian Anderson’s Suite from Exiles, the LSO and Simon Rattle
Often you go to concerts and the programming isn’t especially obvious – why are these works being played besides each other? This is particularly the case with concertos and symphonies.…
A formidable Dame Patricia Routledge as the formidable Dame Myra Hess
It came as something of a shock to me to discover that Dame Patricia Routledge is now 92 years old. She is much shorter than one imagines, given the massive…
ENO’s Valkyrie fails to catch fire: an under-ambitious start to Richard Jones’s Ring Cycle
Very little exists in a visual way of Wieland Wagner’s Bayreuth Die Walküre from the mid-to-late 1960s. What does, largely requires us to use our imagination. It is something which…
Simon Keenlyside and Anna Pirozzi: chilling psychopaths in Covent Garden’s impressive revival of Macbeth
Macbeth is the first great fusion of music and drama in Verdi’s operas. It needs a great production, however, to bring those elements together and this is largely what Phyllida…
Transfigured Strauss and breathtaking Wagner: Miah Persson sings Vier letze Lieder and Rouvali conducts The Ring Without Words
It’s not often that I review a concert back to front, but this Philharmonia pairing of Strauss and Wagner is in part better understood that way. Both composers used huge…
Thomas Schippers and the NHKSO: beauty, opulence and power – the legendary Osaka Die Walküre debuts on CD
The American conductor Thomas Schippers is a name largely unknown to many people. There may be several reasons for this. He died relatively young – at 47 – from lung…
An Akhnaten for our times from the Metropolitan Opera
Philip Glass’s major operas are hardly well represented on CD. Indeed, until recently only a single recording of each of Satyagraha and Akhnaten was available – and in the case…