The Dutch soprano Channa Malkin explores aspects of motherhood and maternal love in This is not a lullaby, an album of songs by Mieczysław Weinberg, Sir John Tavener and her…
Category: Reviews
Les Talens Lyriques present an inspiring premiere recording of Lully’s Ballet royal de la Naissance de Vénus
In Le Maître a danser, a dance manual which was published in Paris in 1725, Pierre Rameau wrote of the saltatory prowess of the French King, Louis XIV (1643-1715) and…
Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro 2021
Moïse et Pharaon, ou Le passage de la mer rouge is Rossini’s adaptation of his Neapolitan Mosè in Egitto for the Paris Opéra. This revision may be the epitome of…
I Fagiolini: Au naturel
I Fagiolini like a ‘hook’, and they’re expert at devising one. On this occasion it was a painting, or, rather, a series of paintings – The Four Seasons by Pieter…
Heartfelt: truth and directness from Roxanna Panufnik
This Signum Classics recording of a selection of Roxanna Panufnik’s chamber music, for varied vocal and instrumental forces, is titled Heartfelt – and it is indeed a generous programme, sincerely…
British Youth Opera: a superb cast shine in Rossini’s L’occasione fa il ladro
Rossini’s libretti often require one to leave logic at the theatre entrance and embrace the absurd – stock buffa characters, stolen and switched identities, arranged marriages, double nuptials, an inevitable…
Cries in the High Desert
Beginning in 1957, the venerable Santa Fe Opera festival embarked on an ambitious journey that included presenting world premieres, in which series this summer’s The Lord of Cries is the…
Figaro la, Figaro qua in Santa Fe
Like the barber in another famous piece, Santa Fe Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) is frequently all over the place. There may be a number of…
Santa Fe Opera Fields a Dream Team
If ever there was a nigh perfect match of an opera with idyllic outdoor surroundings, Santa Fe Opera’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is surely the one. The opening thirty minutes…
Gilchrist and Williamson offer insights and new avenues in One Hundred Years of British Song Vol.2
In October 2020 tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Nathan Williamson opened their three-volume survey of the less well-traversed byways of the British song repertoire, One Hundred Years of British Song,…