This season opener brought together something new, rare and familiar – and with it, in the first half, a clear plea for freedom explicit in the choice of music by…
Category: Performances
Ballets Russes at the Aix Festival
Not to be confused with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes or Wassily de Basil’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, it was Igor Stravinsky’s trilogy of ballet scores created for Paris based,…
A magnificent Philip II rescues Covent Garden’s revival of Don Carlo
Irrespective of the version of Don Carlo used, or the language in which it is sung, this is an uneven opera. The Verdi of the first two acts is, in…
L’Opéra de Quat’Sous at the Aix Festival
That’s The Three Penny Opera. While four “sous” wouldn’t get you in the door, the price of admission was far less than the usual offering at this lofty altar to…
The Bartered Bride still charms at Garsington
Paul Curran’s 2019 The Bartered Bride, set in late 1950s Britain, makes a welcome return to the Wormsley Estate in Rosie Purdie’s likeable revival. With a new cast, this folksy…
Woman at Point Zero at the Royal Opera House
Nawal El Saadawi’s 1975 novel, Woman at Point Zero, presents an ‘eve of death-row’ narrative which is a chilling indictment of patriarchal society. An Egyptian woman, Firdaus, has been convicted…
UK premiere of Barnum’s Bird at the Royal College of Music
‘I believe hugely in advertising and blowing my own trumpet, beating the gongs, drums, to attract attention to a show.’ So wrote Phineas Taylor Barnum to a publisher in 1860, adding, ‘As…
Treemonisha 2.0 in Joplin’s Hometown
It takes nearly forty minutes to get to the music Scott Joplin himself wrote for Treemonisha at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and I don’t mean that as a bad…
Saint Louis: Oh, Susannah!
From the downbeat of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ riveting production of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, there was a palpable electricity in the air. In fact, even before the first note…
Visually arresting Candide from Welsh National Opera
In the light of today’s cultural, financial and social turmoil, Welsh National Opera’s new production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide is just the sort of tonic everyone needs. If its overworked…