In his programme book article accompanying John Doyle’s new production of Massenet’s Werther at Grange Park Opera, Rupert Christiansen describes the opera’s musical highlights as being scenes that ‘flow in…
Category: Reviews
Hansel & Gretel: Opera Holland Park Young Artists
One of the reasons why Humperdinck’s Hansel & Gretel remains such a popular staple in the opera house is that it combines a potent story with great tunes. Written before Freud, yet…
Another escape from the Seraglio: André Grétry’s La caravane du Caire at the Chateau de Versailles
André Grétry’s opéra-ballet La caravane du Caire is certainly not fashioned for the MeToo# age. It was given a private performance at Fontainebleau in 1783 and then presented the following…
El ultimo sueño de Frida y Diego in San Francisco
History according to opera is a wondrous thing. Just now in San Francisco Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have gone off into the sunset (eternity) together, happily reconciled. All this…
Così fan tutte at The Grange
To Hampshire and The Grange for the second of what should for me be three productions of Così fan tutte this summer. I cannot yet comment on Munich (Benedict Andrews/Vladimir…
Die Frau ohne Schatten in San Francisco
The fifth opera of the lengthy Richard Strauss canon, The Woman Without a Shadow (1915) is surely the richest work of them all, traversing real and imaginary worlds while proving…
Tosca at Grange Park Opera
I didn’t see Peter Relton’s production of Tosca for Grange Park Opera when it inaugurated the company’s new Theatre in the Woods at West Horsley in 2017, so it was…
A double bill of Gluck and Purcell which dances, ducks and dives at The Grange Festival
Reviewing Daniel Slater’s production of Handel’s Tamerlano at The Grange Festival last year, I remarked that there was ‘so little directorial intervention that what few such gestures there are stick…
Saariaho’s Adriana Mater in San Francisco
June in San Francisco may become one of the world’s great opera festivals. In recent years the San Francisco Symphony has added a staged opera in its concert hall to…
Madama Butterfly in San Francisco
Japanese stage director Amon Miyamoto’s Madama Butterfly was first seen in Tokyo, then traveled to Dresden before arriving just now in San Francisco. Unlike Puccini who made the tiny Japanese…