If theatre in general, and verismo opera in particular, is based on the tension between pretence and reality, art and life, this performance of Pagliacci at The Grange in leafy…
Category: Staged Operas
Separation and Reconciliation: Opera Scenes presented by the Royal College of Music Opera Studio
‘Separation and reconciliation’: a fitting way to sum up the experience of many of us during the past months. And, also, the theme which united the Opera Scenes – drawn…
Rusalka at the Teatro Real in Madrid
For all the popularity of what might be termed its hit number, Dvořák’s opera Rusalka has a somewhat odd history in the UK. It had to wait until 1959 before…
La Bohème at a Drive-in Movie Theater
Well, maybe it wasn’t an opera house, but it was somewhere to go for opera beyond your living room. It was festive indeed to join a few hundred diehard aficionados…
The Seven Deadly Sins: Opera North at Leeds Playhouse
Kurt Weill’s ballet chanté, Die sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins), is a work of exile in troubled times, Weill and Brecht wrote it in 1933 in Paris shortly after…
‘Ariodante in concert’ at the Royal Opera House
Ariodante is surely one of Handel’s most ‘human’ dramas. It’s not just that the libretto –anonymously adapted from Antonio Salvi’s Ginevra, principessa di Scozia, after Ariosto’s Orlando furioso – involves…