The fifth opera in the Richard Strauss canon — the one that is truly gigantic — staged just now at Toulouse’s acoustically famed 1150 seat Theatre du Capitole in the…
Category: Performances
Powerful performances from The English Concert at the Wigmore Hall
Works written for performance in Hanover, Rome and London featured in this all-Handel programme given by the English Concert. The evening’s second half was taken up by Dixit Dominus, dating…
The Carver Choirbook is ‘unwrapped’ by The Sixteen at Kings Place
Kings Place’s annual celebration of a particular ‘theme’ has entered its sixteenth year, and in 2024 it is the turn of Scotland to be ‘unwrapped’. The year-long series will explore…
Chornobyldorf: An Archaeological Opera in Seven Novels
For two weeks in January each year, the Prototype Festival brings small-scale and experimental musical theater to New York. The focus is on new works that draw not so much…
‘Love, viewed from the dark side’: Christof Loy’s production of Strauss’s Elektra at the Royal Opera House
Skimming through some of the critical literature on the myth of Electra – who, following the murder of her father, the Mycenaean King Agamemnon, at the hands of her mother…
Songs of Antiquity: James Newby and Joseph Middleton at Wigmore Hall
Titled Songs of Antiquity, this recital by baritone James Newby and pianist Joseph Middleton began and ended both in the past and in darkness, the Prologue and Epilogue composed by…
Silver Bells: VOCES8 on Christmas Eve
In 2021, VOCES8 invited us to pull a Christmas Cracker. This year they encouraged us to relish the quiet sparkle of Silver Bells. Their Christmas Eve live stream, from the…
A seasonal masterpiece: Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols at Temple Church
Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, for three-part treble voices and harp, is one of the composer’s most joyful works, its expression direct, strong and true. It was composed in the…
Resonemus laudibus: a Renaissance Christmas from The Sixteen at Wigmore Hall
“Let praises resound!” was the rallying cry of this Wigmore Hall lunchtime recital of Christmas music by The Sixteen. It’s common, these days, for vocal ensembles to juxtapose old and…
A children-friendly Hansel and Gretel at Covent Garden
Hunger and gluttony; poverty and glamour; homelessness and tinselly angels; the reality of rags and the sparkle of magic. The stark juxtapositions evident on the Strand, during my walk from…