My response to much of this and last year’s Mahler anniversary bonanza
has been to stay away: certainly not out of antipathy, nor out of boredom, nor on account of any other negative reaction to the music of a composer whom I admire as greatly as ever, but simply because there are too many unnecessary performances of that music on offer.
Category: Reviews
Mahler, Royal Festival Hall
Faust, Royal Opera House
When the Royal Opera House London does things well, it does them very well indeed. This Gounod’s Faust was a sizzler!
Lucrezia Borgia in San Francisco
Bad news travels fast. Though you are about to read another version of how American diva RenÈe Fleming failed to bring Lucrezia Borgia alive, let us begin by discussing a few other things you already know.
Ioan Holender Farewell Concert
What better way for the long-reigning director of the Vienna State Opera, Ioan Holender, to celebrate the end of his time in the post than with a lengthy gala featuring such stars as Gergely NÈmeti, Roxana Constantinescu, Krassimira Stoyanova, and Keith Ikaia-Purdy?
Billy Budd at the Barbican
Among recent recordings of Britten’s opera Billy Budd, the recent
release conducted by Daniel Harding has much to offer in terms of performance
quality, interpretation, and also the quality of recording.
Atys, Brooklyn Academy of Music
In 1989, William Christie’s ten-year-old Paris-based baroque troupe, Les Arts Florissants, brought a staged production to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the first time, Lully’s Atys.
Christian Gerhaher, Wigmore Hall
Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber presented Schubert’s song cycles at the Wigmore Hall, London.
Beecham conducts Delius
Frederick Delius counts among those many composers whose reputations rely on their orchestral efforts, but who dearly wanted to make a lasting contribution to the opera repertory.
Lawrence Zazzo, Wigmore Hall
Lawrence Zazzo’s last visit to the Wigmore Hall, in April earlier this year, saw him present an intriguing sequence of American song from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The Passenger, ENO, London
The circumstances behind Mieczys?aw Weinberg’s The Passenger at the ENO, London, are extraordinary.