At the Metropolitan Opera, performances of the same opera with the same singers just a few days apart often sound very different. During the recent run of Fidelio, for example,…
Category: Performances
Musical liveliness transcends some obscurities in the Royal Academy’s hospital-based Magic Flute
Jamie Manton’s production of The Magic Flute for the Royal Academy of Music takes its cue from Tamino’s predicament at the opera’s opening – wounded and in mortal danger. Accordingly,…
Off with her head!: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda at Hamburg State Opera
Had it not been for King Henry VIII, England would have remained a Catholic country and the course of English, and later British, history would have been very different. Had…
On Haydn’s desert island at the Paris Opera
L’isola disabitata (The Uninhabited Island) is a comparatively late opera by Haydn, or rather an azione teatrale, which calls for only four soloists and an intimate setting. Indeed, it may…
Barbara Hannigan at the Barbican
Barbara Hannigan is unquestionably a star in today’s musical firmament. Anyone who has heard (and seen) her Ligeti Mysteries of the Macabre, live or recorded, would neither doubt nor forget…
An unconventional, satirical take on Weber’s Der Freischütz for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen at Antwerp
Weber’s Der Freischütz is well-known – and variously admired or deplored – as one of the seminal works of German musical Romanticism. Despite its fame and influence, it isn’t now…
The Guildhall Symphony Orchestra: a thrilling program of Hillborg, Britten and Strauss.
Guildhall Symphony Orchestra concerts are always something of an event and this one was no exception. Taking in a Swedish modern classic, one of Benjamin Britten’s finest works and a…
A Captivating new production of Pelléas et Mélisande at Opéra Bastille
Premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1902 and closely based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s play, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande is renowned for its collision between “its severest realism and the…
Regents Opera’s Ring: A Götterdämmerung for modern times
Having missed the three previous operas in this Ring Cycle I wondered if I’d find myself at a disadvantage in Regents Opera’s Götterdämmerung: the answer is, I think, both yes…
Renée Fleming sings Strauss
“Renée Fleming sings Strauss” shouted all the publicity for this concert, omitting to mention the program was 75% Wagner. Conductor Thomas Guggeis hardly got a look in, yet his successes…