Opera Philadelphia has mounted as gripping and musically ravishing an account of Lucia di Lammermoor as is imaginable.
Category: Reviews
O18 Poulenc Evening: Moins C’est Plus
In Opera Philadelphia’s re-imagined La voix humaine, diva Patricia Racette had a tough “act” to follow …
O18: Unsettling, Riveting Sky on Swings
Opera Philadelphia’s annual festival set the bar very high even by its own gold standard, with a troubling but mesmerizing world premiere, Sky on Wings.
Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony — Martyn Brabbins BBCSO
From Hyperion, an excellent new Ralph Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony with Martyn Brabbins conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Chorus, Elizabeth Llewellyn and Marcus Farnsworth soloists. This follows on from Brabbins’s highly acclaimed Vaughan Williams Symphony no 2 “London” in the rarely heard 1920 version.
Simon Rattle — Birtwistle, Holst, Turnage, and Britten
Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra marked the opening of the 2018-2019 season with a blast. Literally, for Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s new piece Donum Simoni MMXVIII was an explosion of brass — four trumpets, trombones, horns and tuba, bursting into the Barbican Hall. When Sir Harry makes a statement, he makes it big and bold !
OSJ: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Harem
Opera San Jose kicked off its 35th anniversary season with a delectably effervescent production of their first-ever mounting of Mozart’s youthful opus, The Abduction from the Seraglio.
Superlative Lohengrin from Bayreuth, 1967
The names of Belfast-born soprano Heather Harper and Kansas-born tenor James King may not resonate for younger music lovers, but they sure do for folks my age. Harper was the glowing, nimble soprano in Colin Davis’s renowned 1966 recording of Handel’s Messiah and in Davis’s top-flight recording (ca. 1978) of Britten’s Peter Grimes, featuring Jon Vickers.
Isouard’s Cinderella: Bampton Classical Opera at St John’s Smith Square
A good fairy-tale sweeps us away on a magic carpet while never letting us forget that for all the enchanting transformations, beneath the sorcery lie essential truths.
A Winterreise both familiar and revelatory: Ian Bostridge and Thomas AdËs at Wigmore Hall
‘“Will you play your hurdy-gurdy to my songs?” the wanderer asks. If the answer were to be a “yes”, then the crazy but logical procedure would be to go right back to the beginning of the whole cycle and start all over again. This could explore a notion of eternal recurrence: we are trapped in the endless repetition of this existential lament.’
The Royal Opera House lets everyone in on the act
The Royal Opera House today opens the doors to its transformed new home, following an extensive three-year construction project.