In October 2014, the Oxford Lieder Festival – under its imaginative and intrepid founder, Sholto Kynoch – fulfilled an incredibly ambitious goal: to perform Schubert’s entire corpus of songs – more than 600 – and, for three marvellous weeks, to bring Vienna to Oxford. ‘The Schubert Project’ was a magnificent celebration of the life and music of Franz Schubert: at its core lay the first complete performance of Schubert’s songs – including variants and alternative versions – in the UK.
Category: Interviews
A Chat With Baritone Brian Mulligan
Maria Nockin interviews baritone Brian Mulligan.
An interview with Tobias Ringborg
I arrive at the Jerwood Space, where rehearsals are underway for Garsington
Opera’s forthcoming production of Idomeneo, to find that the
afternoon rehearsal has finished a little early.
A Conversation with Sir Nicholas Jackson
With its merry-go-round exchange of deluded and bewitched lovers, an orphan-turned-princess, a usurped prince, a jewel and a flower with magical properties, a march to the scaffold and a meddling ‘mistress-of-ceremonies’ who encourages the young lovers to disguise and deceive, William Makepeace Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring has all the ingredients of an opera buffa.
A Chat With Up-and-Coming Conductor Kathleen Kelly
Kathleen Kelly is an internationally renowned pianist, coach, conductor, and master teacher. She was the first woman and first American named Director of Musical Studies at the Vienna State Opera.
Atsuto Sawakami — Sponsor of Italian Opera in Japan
Atsuto Sawakami is a slightly built man in his late sixties with impeccable, gentlemanly manners. He communicates a certain restless energy and his piercingly bright eyes reveal an undimmed appetite for life.
Mark Stone — Oxford Lieder Festival
‘Lieder v. Opera’? At first glance it might seem to be a pointless or nonsensical question.
Oxford Lieder Festival 2015 – Sholto Kynoch interview
Last year’s Oxford Lieder Festival made something of a splash when it encompassed all of Schubert’s songs, performed in the space of three weeks. This year’s festival, the 14th, which runs from 16 to 31 October 2015 has a rather different, yet still eye-catching theme; Singing Words: Poets and their Songs.
For Odyssey Opera, No Operatic Challenge is Too Great
For a company founded in 2013, Odyssey Opera has an astounding track record. To take on Korngold’s Die tote Stadt is ambitious enough, but to do so within only a year of the company’s founding seems almost single-minded.
Interview with Star of Florencia en el Amazonas, Elizabeth Caballero
Lyric soprano Elizabeth Caballero’s signature role is Violetta in La traviata, which she portrays with a compelling interpretation, focused sound, and elegant coloratura that floats through the opera house as naturally as waves on the ocean.