Stuttgart: Too Hot to Handel

With its staging of Alcina, Stuttgart Opera seems to set out to prove that George Friedrich Handel can be all ‘sexypants.’

Elektra in Marseille

Sadistic revenge and sadistic challenge in equal parts. You know the story — if Oreste had not slaughtered his mother Elektra would have. And did over and over in nearly two hours of raving about killing her mother. Elektra is one of the repertory’s more beloved operas.

Radamisto at Barbican Hall

Handel’s Radamisto HWV 12a confirms the Barbican Hall as one of the finest places for baroque in London. Superb performances from David Daniels, Luca Pisaroni, and Patricia Bardon, with Harry Bicket conducting The English Concert from the harpsichord

Palm Beach Opera Celebrates New Season

Palm Beach Opera opened its new season with the opera that began it all, La Traviata.

Bernarda Fink Residency, Wigmore Hall

For the first of her two February recitals at the Wigmore Hall, the
Argentinean mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink was joined by the Hugo Wolf Quartett in
an eclectic, Italian-themed programme in which singer and instrumentalists
sculpted diverse and beautiful musical vistas and communicated a remarkably
coherent, shared vision.

Erik Satie, Socrate and Igor Stravinsky. Renard and other works

This concert was part of a greater weekend of concerts at the Southbank
Centre looking at Paris during the second and third decades of the twentieth
century, the weekend itself part of the year-long Rest is Noise
season.

Joyce DiDonato: Drama Queens

Joyce DiDonato brought her Drama Queens tour to the Barbican Hall last night, 6 February 2012. Accompanied by Il Complesso Barocco, directed by Dmitry Sinkovsky, she enabled us to hear a wide range of arias by mainly Italian baroque composers from Monteverdi to Handel, by way of Porta, Cesti, Orlandini and Hasse.

Die Entf˚hrung aus dem Serail in Montpellier

The fearsome Ottoman Turks had threatened the Austrian borders for centuries. But Mozart’s little singspiel makes light of this truly serious situation, and offers a quite enlightened resolution for the conflict as well.

Dialogues of the Carmelites in Toulon

Boasting one of France’s grandest opera houses (said to be the model for Paris’ OpÈra Garnier) Toulon hosts a season of five operas — Aida, Butterfly and Flute are hand in hand with Carmen and, yes, Dialogues des carmÈlites.

Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House

Kasper Holten’s directorial debut in the Royal Opera House begins with
silence.