There can be no better venue in London for a performance of Mahler’s ’Resurrection’ Symphony than the Royal Albert Hall. Those fortunate enough to acquire tickets for this sell-out concert…
Category: Reviews
Sir John in Love: Vaughan Williams’ opera is presented with wit, charm and affection by British Youth Opera
Of Shakespeare’s characters, only Sir John Falstaff has inspired so many operas. Alongside accounts of his amorous adventures by Salieri, Nicolai, Balfe, Verdi and Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ four-act comedy,…
VOCES8 and the VOCES8 Scholars perform Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G in Milton Abbey
The closing concert of VOCES8’s annual summer school and festival at Milton Abbey was a contribution to this year’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan…
Alice Coote & Julius Drake present a collection of popular Schubert lieder
Alice Coote’s recent disc, Schubert 21 Songs, joins an already well-filled and distinguished discography. She and her long-term collaborator Julius Drake curate a wide-ranging selection bookended by two versions each…
Le Comte Ory at the Rossini Opera Festival
It was a South American mafia, Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez as the deceitful Count Ory, Venezuelan Diego Matheuz as conductor and Argentinian Hugo de Ana as metteur en scène.…
Rossini’s Otello at Pesaro’s Vitrifrigo Arena
Two high concept productions: Rossini’s Otello set in a kitchen with Rossini’s Le Comte Ory providing some eggs. More or less. For its large scale productions the Rossini Opera Festival…
Prom 43: Handel’s Solomon
Some of Handel’s oratorios aspire to theatre; some have had theatre thrust upon them. Solomon has neither sustained drama nor a coherent narrative, but it does have some fantastic music…
A sonically stirring ‘Song of the Earth’ from Le balcon and Maxime Pascal
Performances and recordings of Rainer Riehn’s 1983 chamber-ensemble arrangement of Mahler’s symphony-cum-song-cycle, Das Lied von der Erde, seem quite common these days – perhaps even more so than the original…
Turandot at the Arena di Verona
Spectacle is what the Arena di Verona does best, spectacle is what the late Franco Zefferelli did best, Turandot is an opera that lends itself to spectacle like no other.…
Prom 41: Superb Nielsen from Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
“I think many people are in for pleasant surprises as they get to know Nielsen: his rough charm, his swing, his drive, his rhythmic surprises, his strange power of harmonic…