“On this happy and auspicious day which marks the end of the amorous sufferings of our demi-god, let us sing, shepherds, such sweet melodies, that worthy of Orpheus may be…
Category: Reviews
Victorian Villainy: Opera della Luna at Wilton’s Music Hall
Frankenstein’s ‘creature’, Count Dracula, Henry Jekyll-Edward Hyde: nineteenth-century fiction has furnished some notable literary monsters who continue to captivate the contemporary imagination. Sweeney Todd, barbarous barber and supplier of sickening…
Tosca in San Jose (CA)
There was Tosca at Berlin’s Volksbühne sung by actors (not singers), there was Tosca at the Aix Festival documenting the demise of an aged diva. But mostly Tosca is the…
Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence at the Royal Opera House
Kaija Saariaho’s latest opera, first seen at the 2021 Festival d’Aix en Provence, has now reached another of its co-commissioners, the Royal Opera House. It would be difficult to overstate…
‘Babi Yar’: Shostakovich, Noseda and the LSO
Shostakovich’s ‘Babi Yar’ Symphony, his thirteenth, is amongst his greatest works – and yet in a sense it disappeared completely after its troubled premiere on December 18th, 1962. The composer…
Breath-taking performances from The Sixteen
In today’s increasingly secular society where rural churches are now no longer obliged to hold a weekly service, musical settings of devotional texts can create spiritual balm for many listeners.…
One Good Friday: two St John Passions
After the reverential intimacy of Johann Sebastiani’s St Matthew Passion at Wigmore Hall, on Good Friday evening J.S. Bach’s St John Passion – performed at the Barbican Hall by the…
Johann Sebastiani’s St Matthew Passion at Wigmore Hall
On Good Friday, it was out with the new and in with the old at Wigmore Hall. A little context, first. In Germany, Baroque music was embedded in religious culture,…
Tannhäuser at Salzburg
Tannhäuser made the young Richard Wagner’s reputation. Charles Baudelaire, Franz Liszt, Oscar Wilde, Queen Victoria and other luminaries became obsessed with Wagner’s portrayal (and subtle critique) of the struggle between…
Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil: Choir of King’s College London
Composed in under a fortnight in 1915, Rachmaninov’s monumental All-Night Vigil is recognised as one of the most challenging works in the a cappella repertory. Alongside his Liturgy of St John Chrysostom…