Here’s yet another very effective German opera post-Weber but not by Wagner! We hear and see so few of these! I was quite taken in the past two years with…
Category: Reviews
A Guardian Angel: VOCES8 open their Live from London – Christmas festival
Sixteen concerts over five weeks, 280 artists, a ‘Young Singers’ spotlight featuring singers from the UK, US Germany and Singapore, and six newly commissioned works. VOCES8’s Live from London –…
Dmytro Popov: Hymns of Love
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,…
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…