The first performance of Charles Villiers Stanford’s ninth and final opera The Travelling Companion was given by an enthusiastic troupe of Liverpudlian amateurs at the David Lewis Theatre – Liverpool’s ‘Old Vic’ – in April 1925, nine years after it was completed, eight after it won a Carnegie Award, and one year after the composer’s death.
Category: Reviews
Russian romances at Wigmore Hall
The songs of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov lie at the heart of the Romantic Russian art song repertoire, but in this duo recital at Wigmore Hall it was the songs of Nikolay Medtner – three of which were framed by sequences by the great Russian masters – which proved most compelling and intriguing.
Wolfgang Rihm: Requiem-Strophen
The world premiere recording of Wolfgang Rihm’s Requiem-Strophen (2015/2016) with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks with Mojca Erdmann, Anna Prohaska and Hanno M¸ller-Brachmann, from BR Klassik NEOS.
Don Giovanni: Manitoba Opera
Manitoba Opera turned the art of seduction into bloodsport with its 2018/19 season-opener of Mozart’s dramma giocoso, Don Giovanni often walking a razor’s edge between hilarious social commentary and chilling battles for the soul.
Jonathan Miller’s La bohËme returns to the Coliseum
And still they come. No year goes by without multiple opportunities to see it; few years now go by without my taking at least one of those opportunities. Indeed, I see that I shall now have gone to Jonathan Miller’s staging on three of its five (!) outings since it was first seen at ENO in 2009.
Sir Thomas Allen directs Figaro at the Royal College of Music
The capital’s music conservatoires frequently present not only some of the best opera in London, but also some of the most interesting, and unusual, as the postgraduate students begin to build their careers by venturing across diverse operatic ground.
Old Bones: Iestyn Davies and members of the Aurora Orchestra ‘unwrap’ Time at Kings Place
In this contribution to Kings Place’s 2018 Time Unwrapped series, ‘co-curators’ composer Nico Muhly and countertenor Iestyn Davies explored the relationship between time past and time present, and between stillness and motion.
Cinderella goes to the panto: WNO in Southampton
Once upon a time, Rossini’s La Cenerentola was the Cinderella among his operatic oeuvre.
It’s a Wonderful Life in San Francisco
It was 1946 when George Bailey of Bedford Falls, NY nearly sold himself to the devil for $20,000. It is 2018 in San Francisco where an annual income of ten times that amount raises you slightly above poverty level, and you’ve paid $310 for your orchestra seat to Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
Des Moines: Glory, Glory Hallelujah
A minor miracle occurred as Des Moines Metro Opera converted a large hall on a Reserve Army Base to a wholly successful theatrical venue, and delivered a stunning rendition of Tom Cipullo’s compelling military-themed one act opera, Glory Denied.