There seems to be much sorrow in the world at the moment, but little serenity. This concert by the London Symphony Orchestra thus offered a welcome balancing of affekts, the…
Category: Reviews
McVicar’s The Magic Flute returns to the Royal Opera House
David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute is well on its way to its 20th anniversary (the production debuted in 2003). The current revival (seen 19 December 2022) is…
Rattle’s Stravinsky Journey with the LSO
Criticism of Simon Rattle as a conductor might be justified in several ways; as a creator and innovator of concert programs, however, such criticism would be very wide of the…
Eternal Heaven: Jupiter Ensemble perform Handel at Wigmore Hall
A seamless sequence of beautiful arias and duets by Handel, balancing the secular and the sacred, the tranquil and the tempestuous, the sumptuous and the sophisticated – all brilliantly performed…
Lohengrin at Bayerische Staatsoper
Pity the modern European stage director confronted with Lohengrin. The music is famously seductive, but the plot is abhorrent. What is one to make of a saint who arrives on…
A Child of Our Time: a performance of modern relevance – LPO and Edward Gardner
There is, in part, a trait of cowardice that haunts some of the artists, composers and poets who were working just before the Second World War. Some of W. H.…
Superb selection of Psalms from the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge
This recent collection of psalms from the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge is a fine tribute to the work of Andrew Nethsingha who has been its Director of Music…
It’s a Wonderful Life at English National Opera
For want of a mislaid £8000, both George Bailey’s company and his own reputation are on the brink of ruin, and he himself stands on a literal precipice, ready to…
The Rake’s Progress at the Royal Academy of Music
Blessed by varied approaches to its staging and performance, The Rake’s Progress seems to remain eternally itself (whatever that might mean, as a sometime Prince of Wales might have put…
Orpheus in the Underworld at the Royal College of Music
Identifying the influences which inform her new production of Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld at the Royal College of Music, director Louise Bakker cites ‘everything from Brideshead, Blackadder and…