Two years ago, the Ukrainian tenor Dmytro Popov wooed the audience at Wigmore Hall with Russian romances, in a recital (with the Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Justina Gringytė) of songs by Tchaikovsky,…
Category: Reviews
Separation and Reconciliation: Opera Scenes presented by the Royal College of Music Opera Studio
‘Separation and reconciliation’: a fitting way to sum up the experience of many of us during the past months. And, also, the theme which united the Opera Scenes – drawn…
Bruckner Mass in E minor & Te Deum: Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe, Collegium Vocale Gent and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées bring together two sides of Anton Bruckner’s deep-rooted spirituality. Whether expressed through the rich polyphony of the Mass in E…
World-Premiere Recording: Montemezzi’s One-Act L’incantesimo (1943) Weaves a Spell
Here, from a performance (apparently unstaged) in the hall of the Milan Conservatory (on October 26, 2018), is a one-act opera by Italo Montemezzi (1875-1952), followed by an early Debussy…
Rusalka at the Teatro Real in Madrid
For all the popularity of what might be termed its hit number, Dvořák’s opera Rusalka has a somewhat odd history in the UK. It had to wait until 1959 before…
Heaven full of Stars: Vasari Singers celebrate 40 years of music-making
With this 40th-anniversary disc celebrating four decades since its formation by the still-current director Jeremy Backhouse, Vasari Singers is now officially middle-aged. But with this twenty-eighth CD, there’s no sign…
La Bohème at a Drive-in Movie Theater
Well, maybe it wasn’t an opera house, but it was somewhere to go for opera beyond your living room. It was festive indeed to join a few hundred diehard aficionados…
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge / Stephen Layton Stephen Layton uncovers a rich seam of choral jewels in this collection of sacred music by Finnish choral composer and translator…
The Seven Deadly Sins: Opera North at Leeds Playhouse
Kurt Weill’s ballet chanté, Die sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins), is a work of exile in troubled times, Weill and Brecht wrote it in 1933 in Paris shortly after…
‘Ariodante in concert’ at the Royal Opera House
Ariodante is surely one of Handel’s most ‘human’ dramas. It’s not just that the libretto –anonymously adapted from Antonio Salvi’s Ginevra, principessa di Scozia, after Ariosto’s Orlando furioso – involves…