Spring may be almost upon us, its rituals heralding re-awakenings and promising new beginnings. But, this year, when we are all stuck in an eternal present, the cycles of the…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
Anna Netrebko: Met Stars Live in Concert
The latest, and tenth, concert in the Met Stars Live series took us to the Spanish Riding School in Vienna’s Hofburg Palace complex. The concert was once again genially hosted…
Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczała: Met Stars Live in Concert
January can be a dull and depressing month, and this year it is particularly difficult to keep faith that a light will eventually shine through the darkness. But, a soul-lifting…
Opera Holland Park marks Holocaust Memorial Day in words and music
In November 2014, an exhibition opened in Brno entitled Janáček’s Most Talented Student to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the death of the Czech composer Pavel Haas. In 1941, Haas…
Silenced art speaks powerfully in English Touring Opera’s Shostakovich-Britten pairing
Six years before he composed the Six Romances on Verses by British Poets (namely, Shakespeare, Raleigh and Burns), Shostakovich’s career as a composer of opera came to an abrupt halt…
The Britten Sinfonia create subtle but stirring sonic worlds at Wigmore Hall
Old and new were interwoven in this concert presented by soprano Jennifer France and five members of the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Jack Sheen. The ancient warp was the music…
English Touring Opera presents a powerful pairing of Tippett and Shostakovich
Michael Tippett’s 1943 cantata for tenor and piano, Boyhood’s End, was one of first vocal works composed specifically for Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten. It was first performed on 5th…
A Choral Odyssey with The Sixteen
2020 marked the 20th anniversary of The Sixteen’s annual Choral Pilgrimage tour. In 2000, founder and director Harry Christophers instituted the Choral Pilgrimage, taking the ensemble to English cathedrals from York to…
English Touring Opera perform Tippett and Britten
Covid-19 brought English Touring Opera’s Spring 2020 tour of Giulio Cesare, Così fan tutte and the St John Passion to an untimely halt, but the company got back on the…
The 2020 Kathleen Ferrier Award Final
Regular Opera Today readers will know that the annual Kathleen Ferrier Award Final is a keenly anticipated event in my musical year. This year the Competition’s progress, inevitably, was somewhat…