Category: Performances

Mention Macbeth — The Opera and most think of Verdi. Ernest Bloch took on the subject more than half a century later, in Paris in 1910, when Verdi’s version was almost as obscure as Bloch’s is today.

Many works by Martinů will be performed in this year’s commemoration of the anniversary of his death, but it would be hard to equal the impact of this performance. Much of its success was due to Kožen·, whose presence illuminated the whole opera, even though her moments on stage were fleeting.

In the world of opera it’s now the director who is the top banana.

Jan·?ek enthusiasts in London have been spoiled this month: opening the day before English Touring Opera’s Katya Kabanova, David Alden’s staging of Jenůfa made a welcome return to the Coliseum following its original double Olivier Award-winning run in 2006.

I had been looking forward to it for weeks — really, for years.

In 1831, when Vincenzo Bellini composed this pastorale full of characters who never express any but sincere emotions (with the exception of Lisa, the calculating flirt), he certainly intended them, and their feelings, and therefore their story, to be taken seriously – or he would not have given them such seriously lovely music.

For nearly a decade after its premiere, in 1853, Il Trovatore was the most popular opera, perhaps the most popular stage work on the planet — even more than Rigoletto or Ernani, and far more than Traviata, which had its premiere the following autumn.

Schubert was desperate to be an opera composer — or so one might surmise from the many (at least 18) attempts he made to make a name for himself as a man of the theatre.

English Touring Opera is 30 years old this year, and has never been more adventurous.

Each Australia state maintains its own opera company. The dominant company is Opera Australia, a permanent ensemble based at the Sydney Opera House but which originated in the Melbourne based National Theatre Opera Company in the 1940s.