Tenebrae is one of the UK’s national treasures and like a perfectly manicured county cricket pitch barely a blade of grass is out of place. Everything in this Wigmore Hall…
Category: Performances
Damiano Michieletto’s Don Pasquale returns to the Royal Opera House
In one sense, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale hinges on a slap. In a fit of pique, Norina lashes out at the eponymous wealthy, stubborn old man whom she’s duped, when he…
Schwanengesang and other lieder: Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Leeds Lieder 2022
The thirteen songs, setting poems by Rellstab and Heine, that Schubert’s publisher Tobias Haslinger grouped together, supplemented with an additional setting of Johann Seidl and published as Schwanengesang in 1829,…
The Revolution Smells of Jasmine: Wallis Giunta, Sean Shibe and Adam Walker at Leeds Lieder
The Irish-Canadian mezzo-soprano, Wallis Giunta, described her late-night programme with guitarist Sean Shibe and flautist Adam Walker as ‘the sound track of revolution … an homage to protest music in…
Song Illuminated: Samling Institute Showcase at Leeds Lieder 2022
English song of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was the focus of this lunchtime recital by two Samling Artists, mezzo-soprano Shakira Tsindos and baritone Dominic Sedgwick, on the opening day…
Brilliant Weill from Kožená, Rattle and the LSO at the Barbican
The Seven Deadly Sins is perhaps the most interesting of the collaborations between Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht. Composed ‘post-rift’ in 1933, this ballet chanté is sophisticated both musically and…
Mahler Unwrapped: The London Chamber Orchestra at St John’s Smith Square
‘This concert takes us on a journey through everything in Mahler’s world,’ was presenter Dr Leah Broad’s ambitious claim for this London Chamber Orchestra programme at St John’s Smith Square. …
Lohengrin at the Royal Opera House
Considering the first night of David Alden’s (then) new production of Lohengrin in 2018, I found ‘a conceptual weakness at … [its] heart. I suspect it can be remedied: if…
Radamisto in Palo Alto (CA)
In some ways the Philharmonia Baroque’s Radamisto did not disappoint San Francisco Bay Area’s Handel fans. Handel is no stranger at San Francisco’s esteemed Philnarmonia Baroque Orchestra, just now it…
West Side Story in San Jose (CA)
No one can deny that Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story is one of the bigger moments in twentieth century theater. Its movies may be Oscar worthy films, but finally its…