Theodora is ‘coming home’ … but not as you know it, was the essential message of the press briefings issued by the Royal Opera House in the run up to…
Category: Reviews
A Musical Banquet: Iestyn Davies and Thomas Dunford
Hot off the press in 1610 was A Musicall Banquet furnished with varietie of delicious Ayres, Collected out of the best Authors in English, French, Spanish and Italian – a compilation…
Les Vêpres Siciliennes in Palermo
Ossia I Vespri Siciliani takes its name from the evening prayer to which the faithful are called by the ringing of bells. Specifically the bells of Verdi’s Sicilian vespers signal…
Kát’a Kabanova in Rome
The Opera di Roma marks the centenary of Janacek’s intimate domestic tragedy Kat’a Kabanova with a new cast for Richard Jones’ prize winning, 2019 Covent Garden production. Reportedly spell binding…
Svadba: Ana Sokolović’s opera is creatively re-imagined through image and movement
In Germany, wedding guests smash piles of crockery the night before the ceremony, the custom of Polterabend being thought to bring good fortune to the bride and groom in their…
ETO at Home: Ferrandini’s Il pianto di Maria
English Touring Opera’s ETO at Home project has seen the company produce a series of films of operas, large scale vocal works, chamber music and song which can be viewed…
Sir William Walton: a centenary Façade from SOMM and the Orchestra of the Swan
The critics condemned the ‘entertainment’ as a ridiculous hoax. Noel Coward stormed out. After the show, one disgruntled elderly lady was rumoured to be lying in wait for the ‘soloist’…
Exile and Isolation: Julian Anderson’s Suite from Exiles, the LSO and Simon Rattle
Often you go to concerts and the programming isn’t especially obvious – why are these works being played besides each other? This is particularly the case with concertos and symphonies.…
Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House
As an exploration of 18th-century class structures Le nozze di Figaro is a timeless classic which no number of revivals will diminish. With its thumb-nosing at society’s upper echelons, it’s no…
Iestyn Davies and Arcangelo: Bach cantatas
In 2017, Iestyn Davies added an MBE, for his services to music, and a Gramophone Award, for his Hyperion recording with Jonahan Cohen and Arcangelo of three of Bach’s solo…