Riccardo Zandonai’s reputation rests almost entirely on his 1914 opera Francesca da Rimini, a work that retains a toehold on the repertoire. A somewhat overblown romantic tragedy based on a…
Category: Performances
Otello in Los Angeles
The revival of an architecturally kitsch, early twenty-first century production from Parma, Italy could not dim the luster of this finely wrought Otello. The Italian tragedy shone with exceptional, unusual…
Don Giovanni: a new production by Mariame Clément opens Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2023
When Donna Anna’s father rescues her from the sexual predator who has abused her, in the opening moments of Mariame Clément’s new production of Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne, he shoves…
Royal Academy Opera: Rossini’s La cambiale di matrimonio
This bright, bold and brisk production of Rossini’s La cambiale di matrimonio (The Marriage Contract) at the Royal Academy of Music confirmed one thing: that the 18-year-old Rossini knew what…
Ecstasy and Revolution: The Bells and Prometheus with Kochanovsky and the Philharmonia
The anniversaries of composers always provide a decent opportunity to hear music we rarely do. Serge Rachmaninoff’s 150th anniversary is a major chance to do that – although he is…
A smart and sharp Agrippina from Hampstead Garden Opera
In 2017, the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington mounted a landmark, immersive exhibition, Opera: Passion, Power and Politics, which attempted to tell the ‘story of opera’ from its…
England’s Orpheus: Iestyn Davies and Thomas Dunford at Wigmore Hall
One imagines that, when compiling their programme for this recital at Wigmore Hall, Iestyn Davies and Thomas Dunford sat down and drew up a list of their ‘desert island’ favourites. …
Donizetti’s L’esule di Roma: Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall
Donizetti’s melodramma eroico, L’esule di Roma, was the composer’s first major success with opera seria. It premiered in Naples at the Teatro S. Carlo on 1st January 1828, travelled to…
Exaltation from the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir fit for a King
Hymn of the Forests was the programme title for what was really a celebration of events earlier in the day down the road at Westminster Abbey. There was certainly much…
Total Immersion: Kaija Saariaho
‘Total Immersion’ is a good way of describing the music of the Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho. The spectral sonorities that she creates by synthesising, manipulating and layering timbres, harmonies and…