‘I believe hugely in advertising and blowing my own trumpet, beating the gongs, drums, to attract attention to a show.’ So wrote Phineas Taylor Barnum to a publisher in 1860, adding, ‘As…
Category: Staged Operas
Treemonisha 2.0 in Joplin’s Hometown
It takes nearly forty minutes to get to the music Scott Joplin himself wrote for Treemonisha at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and I don’t mean that as a bad…
Saint Louis: Oh, Susannah!
From the downbeat of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ riveting production of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, there was a palpable electricity in the air. In fact, even before the first note…
Visually arresting Candide from Welsh National Opera
In the light of today’s cultural, financial and social turmoil, Welsh National Opera’s new production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide is just the sort of tonic everyone needs. If its overworked…
The Queen of Spades at The Grange Festival
There’s nothing particularly Russian, or Slavic, about Paul Curran’s new production of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at The Grange Festival, though it’s heartening to see singers displaced from their…
Country Life: L’elisir d’amore at Longborough Festival Opera
After John Doyle’s spartan Werther at Grange Park Opera, in which the locale was essentially a symbolic representation of the lovelorn protagonist’s mind, at Longborough Festival Opera for their production…
Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at the Princeton Festival
Each summer the Princeton Festival stages an opera, this year an exuberant production of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia under the tent on the Morven Museum Grounds. Though it is…
Into the woods … Werther at Grange Park Opera
In his programme book article accompanying John Doyle’s new production of Massenet’s Werther at Grange Park Opera, Rupert Christiansen describes the opera’s musical highlights as being scenes that ‘flow in…
Hansel & Gretel: Opera Holland Park Young Artists
One of the reasons why Humperdinck’s Hansel & Gretel remains such a popular staple in the opera house is that it combines a potent story with great tunes. Written before Freud, yet…
Another escape from the Seraglio: André Grétry’s La caravane du Caire at the Chateau de Versailles
André Grétry’s opéra-ballet La caravane du Caire is certainly not fashioned for the MeToo# age. It was given a private performance at Fontainebleau in 1783 and then presented the following…