There are some people who still believe in witches and the power of superstition. Jumping from an allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the above title to Hamlet’s declaration to Horatio…
Category: Staged Operas
Austen meets Dove: Mansfield Park at Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Jonathan Dove’s opera Mansfield Park (with libretto adapted from Jane Austen’s novel by Alasdair Middleton) was first performed in 2011 and commissioned by Heritage Opera – a perfect work for…
Shaking it all up with English Touring Opera’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi
You can take the same basic idea with all its dramatic potential, but don’t ever expect it always to turn out successful, even though you adhere to the same basic…
Rusalka in Marseille
It was a fairly straight forward Rusalka, even though it took place at an on-stage Olympic style swimming pool, somewhere. Rusalka did kill the prince with a spear fishing gun,…
Das Rheingold in Paris
Any Calixto Bieito production is news, but it is great big news when he takes on the first installment of opera’s notorious four opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. The…
I Puritani in Paris
Bellini’s tenth and last opera, I Puritani, took Paris by storm in 1835. Judging from the wild applause and standing ovation just now, it has lost none of its appeal…
Castor et Pollux in Paris
Just when you thought DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) was dead, American stage director Peter Sellers brazenly enlisted 16 highly trained (various cool, pop styles) dancers of color from America, France…
A simple, effective staging of a Thea Musgrave’s politically intricate opera Mary, Queen of Scots
Given the obsession with the Tudors – particularly as TV, stage or literary drama, as well as historical documentary – it makes for a welcome variation on this subject that…
Of loneliness, dragons and heroics: Wagner’s Siegfried in a staging by Regents Opera
Nobody should ever assume that creative artists constantly engage in mutual back-slapping. Tolstoy’s verdict on Wagner’s Siegfried, the second day of the Ring cycle, was vicious: “A stupid puppet show…
A domestic drama as good as any: Wagner’s Die Walküre in the Regents Opera Ring
A kitchen sink drama really is nothing new. It’s been around for as long as human beings have been inhabiting a shared domestic space. The first act of Wagner’s Die…