She stood up one Sunday in St George’s church, the parish church of Doncaster, and interrupted the sermon, accusing the preacher of being “a whited sepulchre, a thief, a villain,…
Category: Staged Operas
The Trocs go to the opera? Vinci’s Alessandro nell’Indie with five countertenors at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival
This was a brilliantly theatrical and superbly sung recreation of an opera reflecting the work’s premiere by an all-male cast. Max Emanuel Cencic’s Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival takes place in…
A Handelian capriccio from Bampton Classical Opera at the Barn at Old Walland
Georg Frideric Handel and Richard Strauss may make unlikely bedfellows, but for this inaugural performance at the Barn at Old Walland, in Wadhurst, Sussex, Bampton Classical Opera wittily presented Handel’s…
Sir John in Love: Vaughan Williams’ opera is presented with wit, charm and affection by British Youth Opera
Of Shakespeare’s characters, only Sir John Falstaff has inspired so many operas. Alongside accounts of his amorous adventures by Salieri, Nicolai, Balfe, Verdi and Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ four-act comedy,…
Le Comte Ory at the Rossini Opera Festival
It was a South American mafia, Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez as the deceitful Count Ory, Venezuelan Diego Matheuz as conductor and Argentinian Hugo de Ana as metteur en scène.…
Rossini’s Otello at Pesaro’s Vitrifrigo Arena
Two high concept productions: Rossini’s Otello set in a kitchen with Rossini’s Le Comte Ory providing some eggs. More or less. For its large scale productions the Rossini Opera Festival…
Turandot at the Arena di Verona
Spectacle is what the Arena di Verona does best, spectacle is what the late Franco Zefferelli did best, Turandot is an opera that lends itself to spectacle like no other.…
Falstaff: Santa Fe’s Belly Laughs
Santa Fe Opera welcomed Verdi’s Falstaff back to its world-renowned festival with a stylish new production marked by wit and effervescence. No company undertakes this piece without knowing they have…
The new Bayreuth Tristan und Isolde
This new production by Roland Schwab, conducted by Markus Poschner was given an ecstatic welcome by the acolytes of Wagner’s revered Festspielhaus. There were, in fact, occasional, very occasional moments…