ENO’s Rigoletto still makes dramatic sense

Jonathan Miller’s Mafioso-style Rigoletto, first unveiled in 1982, would seem to be imperishable and has returned yet again to the Coliseum. If the set has not already been infested with…

Fun and games in Vienna: the Guildhall’s Die Fledermaus

Beware the dangers of playing pranks on friends who might nurse their grudges until the right moment presents itself to seek redress. Revenge is after all a dish best served…

Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly gets its UK premiere

If any Puccini opera can evolve with the times it would probably be his Madama Butterfly. Indeed, it has been widely adapted to film – firstly by Fritz Lang in…

An engaging evening of fun demonstrating the very real virtues of Gilbert & Sullivan at its best

Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore presents several challenges, notably the technical one of bringing the ghosts of the ancestors out of their portraits and the more philosophical one of Victorian melodrama.…

ENO’s thought-provoking and sinister Turn of the Screw

Henry James’s 1898 novella expresses far more than the blurred lines arising from ghostly apparitions or the absence of moral absolutes. In Britten’s darkest opera the composer removes some of…

La battaglia di Legnano at Parma’s Verdi Festival gives cause to reflect on the human and animal cost of war

La battaglia di Legnano represents the climax of Verdi’s nationalist, Risorgimento era operas: composed during the period of widespread revolutionary fervour across Italy (and Europe) in 1848, it was premiered…

Tristan and Isolde in San Francisco

In the 1870’s Richard Wagner built a special theater for his operas, a theater where the words of his poems might flow clearly from the stage into the hall. One…

Glyndebourne’s hilarious Il turco in Italia

The choice of Il turco in Italia for Glyndebourne in May 2021 might have been made in recognition of its London premiere exactly two centuries earlier in May 1821 at…

The New National Theatre Tokyo opens its season with Bellini’s La Sonnambula

The NNTT’s 2024/2025 season opened with Vincenzo Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece, La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker), seen on October 12. A co-production with Madrid’s Teatro Real, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu…

Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti / A Quiet Place at the Linbury theatre, Covent Garden – Riveting performances for Bernstein’s double bill, but his last opera remains largely unconvincing

Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti (1952) and A Quiet Place (1983) provide a fascinating glimpse of his stylistic development across some thirty years, seen through the lives of a dysfunctional family.…