An Italian-Turkish conductor, Nil Venditti, led the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra alongside the vocal Epiphoni Consort in an all-Italian programme for this Prom (I see numbers seem to have…
Category: Reviews
PROMS 2026: Carl Maria von Weber, Oberon, Semi-Staged at the Proms
What to do with Oberon? Staging it ‘as is’ – or ‘was’ – is barely an option, though it would be far from without interest for those of us who care…
Longborough Festival Opera’s Hansel and Gretel
How we respond to any production of Humperdinck’s musical Märchenspiel (Fairy Tale) may depend on whether we want to explore our inner child and be charmed by eye-catching visuals or a wish…
Glyndebourne’s Gloriously Colourful and Magnificently Sung Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Themes of fidelity and mercy in Mozart’s 1782 Singspiel might bring to mind similar notions nearly a decade later in Così fan tutti and La Clemenza di Tito. With its witty commentary on servant/master…
Fellow Travelers at Glimmerglass
Is Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers an opera that moves us, or is it a document of a decade we prefer to forget, and to ignore its aftermath? The opera is…
PROMS 2026: Mixed Performances from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ryan Wigglesworth in Dean, Elgar & Weir
Two contemporary works and “the greatest symphony of modern times” gave an opportunity for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to show off their credentials in the first of four Proms appearances. They…
The Egyptian Helen at Bard
This ninth opera in the Richard Strauss catalogue is famed as the only opera, ever, with a singing seashell. There is little else to recommend it. Fortunately Bard College’s famed…
PROMS 2026: From the Alps to the Auvergne
Nature and music are so interconnected – from Bach, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky to name just three composers – that this Prom, From the Alps to the Auvergne, took three markedly different…
An American Prelude to Gianni Schicchi: A Bold Showcase for NNTT’s Rising Talent
Over the weekend of 25 and 26 July, the spotlight fell on the next generation of operatic talent at the New National Theatre Tokyo’s Summer Recital 2026—a showcase featuring the…
A Highly Impressive Samson et Dalila from Dorset Opera Festival
Of Camille Saint-Saëns’s thirteen operas, only his Samson et Dalila remains part of the repertory. Yet it’s not often performed outside London and rarely appears at country house settings. Dorset Opera’s first…