Away from all the bright lights, the mesmerising world of show business, there’s another world: the world of the poor, the needy and the downtrodden. Who ever thought such a…
Category: Reviews
Intensity of expression from Malin Byström at the Wigmore Hall
A recital programme as inviting as this from the acclaimed Swedish soprano would surely have attracted a full house for her Wigmore recital. A pity then to see so many…
DiDonato’s compelling Death of Cleopatra opens a thrilling LPO concert
Vengeance and Death. Medea and Cleopatra. These were the themes that provided the opening works to the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s new season that will be devoted to Moments Remembered which…
Razzmatazz and reflection in Poulenc’s Gloria
For someone who was largely self-taught, Poulenc certainly knew how to get the attention of audiences and hold it. In many ways he was your preternatural French composer: elegant, yet…
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Rite of Spring: His Snegurotchka (The Snow Maiden)
Back in the dim and distant past there was climate change too. In the fairy tale that forms the narrative thread of Rimsky-Korsakov’s third and favourite opera, The Snow Maiden,…
Jumbotron at the Opera: Madama Butterfly at LA Opera
All three acts of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly take place in a tiny Japanese cottage on an isolated hill overlooking Nagasaki. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, an American naval officer, has purchased…
Gordon’s Seeing Through: A Fascinating Life in Progress
One of contemporary opera’s most brilliant and prolific composers, the inestimable Ricky Ian Gordon, has not only laid bare his soul, but also richly chronicled the peaks and valleys of…
Verdi’s Rigoletto at Lyric Opera of Chicago – Another View
The revival of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto now on stage at Lyric Opera of Chicago features several noteworthy debuts and a significant interpretation of the title character. The Duke of Mantua…
The Handmaid’s Tale in San Francisco
Feminist dystopian opera. The Royal Danish Opera’s 2022 production of The Handmaid’s Tale found fertile field in San Francisco! In short Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel made into an opera…
Mixed performances within an austere Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House
Tchaikovsky’s tragic masterpiece can be presented with the minimum of means and on the smallest of scales, and this new production from American director Tedd Huffman, making his long-anticipated main…