Pacific Opera Project is in its fourth annual, sold out run of Puccini’s La bohËme: AKA ‘The Hipsters’, and it may seem at first blush that nothing succeeds like success.
Category: Reviews
Edward Gardner conducts Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ
L’Enfance du Christ is not an Advent work, but since most of this country’s musical institutions shut down over Christmas, Advent is probably the only chance we shall have to hear it – and even then, only on occasion. But then Messiah is a Lenten work, and yet …
Fantasia on Christmas Carols: Sonoro at Kings Place
The initial appeal of this festive programme by the chamber choir, Sonoro, was the array of unfamiliar names nestled alongside titles of familiar favourites from the carol repertoire.
Dickens in Deptford: Thea Musgrave’s A Christmas Carol
Both Venus and the hearth-fire were blazing at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance during this staging of Thea Musgrave’s 1979 opera, A Christmas Carol, an adaptation by the composer of Charles Dickens’ novel of greed, love and redemption.
There is no rose: Gesualdo Six at St John’s Smith Square
This concert of Christmas music at St John’s Smith Square confirmed that not only are the Gesualdo Six and their director Owain Park fine and thoughtful musicians, but that they can skilfully shape a musical narrative.
Temple Winter Festival: The Tallis Scholars
Hodie Christus natus est. Today, Christ is born! A miracle: and one which has inspired many a composer to produce their own musical ‘miracle’: choral exultation which seems, like Christ himself, to be a gift to mankind, straight from the divine.
A new H‰nsel und Gretel at the Royal Opera House
Fairy-tales work on multiple levels, they tell delightful yet moral stories, but they also enable us to examine deeper issues. With its approachably singable melodies, Engelbert Humperdinck’s M‰rchenoper H‰nsel und Gretel functions in a similar way; you can take away the simple delight of the score, but Humperdinck’s discreetly Wagnerian treatment of his musical material allows for a variety of more complex interpretations.
Bohuslav Martin? – What Men Live By
World premiere recording from Supraphon of Bohuslav Martin? What Men Live By (H336,1952-3) with Ji?Ì B?lohl·vek and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from a live performances in 2014, with Martin?’s Symphony no 1 (H289, 1942) recorded in 2016. B?lohl·vek did much to increase Martin?’s profile, so this recording adds to the legacy, and reveals an extremely fine work.
Berlioz: Harold en Italie, Les Nuits d’ÈtÈ
Hector Berlioz Harold en Italie with FranÁois-Xavier Roth and Les SiËcles with Tabea Zimmermann, plus StÈphane Degout in Les Nuits d’ÈtÈ from Hamonia Mundi. This Harold en Italie, op. 16, H 68 (1834) captures the essence of Romantic yearning, expressed in Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage where the hero rejects convention to seek his destiny in uncharted territory.
Rouvali and the Philharmonia in Richard Strauss
It so rarely happens that the final concert you are due to review of any year ends up being one of the finest of all. Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s all Richard Strauss programme with the Philharmonia Orchestra, however, was often quite remarkable – one might quibble that parts of it were somewhat controversial, and that he even lived a little dangerously, but the impact was never less than imaginative and vivid. This was a distinctly young man’s view of Strauss – and all the better for that.