Stylish Performances from Trinity College Cambridge

The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge has built an unassailable reputation for the quality of its recordings. Amongst the discs under the choir’s ex Director of Music Stephen Layton, there…

A remarkable Duke Bluebeard’s Castle from ENO

It would be hard to imagine greater stress levels on the morning of the opening night of English National Opera’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle when soprano Allison Cook, scheduled to sing…

What a difference a conductor makes: Puccini’s less-wounded Butterfly

Two years ago, on this very site, I reviewed a matinée performance of Madama Butterfly at Covent Garden; the review was titled A Wounded Butterfly.  The beautiful production by Moshe…

La fanciulla del West in Lyon

Forget the West of San Francisco born David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West (the source of Puccini’s opera), not to be confused with Peter Sellers’ The Girls of…

Pique Dame in Lyon

The Russian Avant-garde has attacked Lyon, Pique Dame is left in ruin! Enfant terrible (now forty years old) Russian avant-gardiste stage director Timofeï Kouliabine fled Russia in protest of its…

Staatsoper Hamburg’s new production of Il Trovatore is a hit-and-miss affair.

Modern stage directors famously like to shake things up. Immo Karaman, directing Hamburg’s new production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, has two guiding principles in the frame: this is an opera…

Wagner’s 1877 Grand Festival makes a thrilling return to the Albert Hall

In May 1877, Richard Wagner brought to London, for eight concerts, what would become known as Wagner’s Grand Festival. The year before, Der Ring des Niebelungen had been heard for…

Janáček’s Jenůfa burns intensely at ENO

One of Janáček’s most famous operas, Jenůfa is a clear masterpiece. Janáček, in his remarkable adaptation of Gabriela Preissová’s play Její pastorkyña (Her Stepdaughter), offers a searing tale of infanticide…

Naxos Founder, Klaus Heymann, Acquires Chandos Records

Press Release — A440 Arts Group Chandos Records, one of the world’s leading classical labels, has been acquired by Naxos founder, Klaus Heymann. Launched in 1979 by Brian Couzens, Chandos…

An Enchanting, Must-See Magic Flute from ENO

Entertainment does not come much more laugh-out-loud than English National Opera’s current run of The Magic Flute, now in its third revival, and notwithstanding recent machinations over the company’s future.…