Parsifal, with its heavy dose of religiosity and strains of racial supremacy, remains at once the most mystical and historically burdened of Wagner’s operas.
Category: Reviews
Don Giovanni at ENO
Some especially puerile, needlessly irritating, marketing, involving
pictures of condom packets — oddly chosen in so many ways, since few
people find contraceptive especially erotic, and Don Giovanni would seem an
unlikely candidate to have employed them — had attended the run-up to this
revival of Rufus Norris’s production of Don Giovanni.
Mozart and Salieri — Young Artists at the Royal Opera House
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Mozart and Salieri (1897) received its first ever performance at the Royal Opera House as the highlight of Meet The Young Artists Week at the Linbury Studio Theatre.
Where the Wild Things Are, LA Philharmonic
An opera called Where the Wild Things Are based on a libretto by Maurice Sendak may sound like a mere treat for children, but when paired with the music of Oliver Knussen, as performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in a new and unique production by Netia Jones, it makes for a forty minute joy ride into fantasy land for adults as well.
To Rome With Love: A Woody Allen film
What might a Woody Allen treatment involving opera read like? Tosca, third act — the firing squad lets loose shrapnel from a malfunctioning prop carbine, verily cutting into the Cavaradossi.
Lucia di Lammermoor at Arizona Opera
The role of Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor was written for Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani who lived from 1812 to 1867.
Schumann: Under the influence
The first of four concerts in Jonathan Biss’s ‘Schumann: Under the influence’ series at the Wigmore Hall was a focused, intelligent and, at times, sensuous and illuminating, evening of music-making.
Albert Herring at Covent Garden
Labelled a “parable of oppression” by the late musicologist, Philip Brett, Britten’s provincial comedy, Albert Herring, is a tough nut to crack.
The Barber of Frankfurt
Frankfurt Opera’s adventurous season had a notable beginning with a luminous staging of Samuel Barber’s seldom heard Vanessa.
Moby Dick in San Francisco
Forget Herman Melville, forget struggling with deep human complexities. At least those that possessed nineteenth century Americans.