It was only a matter of time — first a novella (1917), a pulp magazine series (1919-1954), a few high profile movies (1920, 1940, 1998), a TV series (1957), a…
Category: Performances
Sparkling performances from Hurn Court Opera’s La Cenerentola
Bitter-sweet comedy of manners, happy-ever-after romance, or a serious moral tale, Rossini’s 1817 stage work is open to various interpretative slants, some even sinisterly dark. But, however you pigeon-hole this…
A curious combination of Schnittke, Shostakovich and Brahms: Lisa Batiashvili, Gianadrea Noseda and the LSO
In German there is only one word (Schicksal) to cover the twin ideas of Providence watching over you in pursuit of higher things (destiny) and the workings of malign supernatural…
Searingly powerful Peter Grimes from Welsh National Opera
With vivid memories of WNO’s outstanding Death in Venice last season, expectations ran high for this new production of Benjamin Britten’s operatic masterpiece. We were not disappointed, and largely the…
A movida Figaro at the Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music last presented Le nozze di Figaro in 2018, in a masterly production by Sir Thomas Allen, a rare example of a director who has sung…
A Colourful Realisation of a Galuppi Opera in Its First Modern Performance
Arcifanfo is the recently rediscovered collaboration between two 18th century Venetians, Baldassare Galuppi and Carlo Goldoni, whose work on many operas together was seminal in the development of opera buffa.…
Pier Luigi Pizzi offers a dark, tense vision for La Fenice’s first Anna Bolena in more than a century and a half
Donizetti’s Anna Bolena regained a place on the operatic stage since at least the rediscovery of bel canto repertoire after the Second World War, through the advocacy of singers such…
Chelsea Opera Group thrillingly reveal the wonderful score of Lalo’s Le roi d’Ys
For all that Lalo’s Le roi d’Ys (premiered in 1888) has scarcely maintained any foothold in the operatic repertoire in modern times, it packs quite a punch, both for its…
The Ghosts of Hamlet
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is all about its melancholic title character. Yet the Danish Prince’s eloquence seduces most of us to overlook the play’s melodramatic plot: a murdered king, usurping brother,…
Boulez at 100: Pli selon pli at the Barbican
The centenary of Pierre Boulez’s birth might well bring with it many performances of his works but perhaps none will be quite so breathtaking in the UK as this one…