For all that Lalo’s Le roi d’Ys (premiered in 1888) has scarcely maintained any foothold in the operatic repertoire in modern times, it packs quite a punch, both for its…
The Ghosts of Hamlet
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is all about its melancholic title character. Yet the Danish Prince’s eloquence seduces most of us to overlook the play’s melodramatic plot: a murdered king, usurping brother,…
Boulez at 100: Pli selon pli at the Barbican
The centenary of Pierre Boulez’s birth might well bring with it many performances of his works but perhaps none will be quite so breathtaking in the UK as this one…
A blazing Verdi Requiem: Riccardo Muti and the Philharmonia
It has been 15 years since Riccardo Muti last returned to the Philharmonia Orchestra, and very much longer since he last conducted Verdi’s Requiem with them, so this concert should…
Death stalks the land: Joyce DiDonato in Schubert’s Winterreise
How much suffering can the human soul endure? When does increasing unhappiness turn into utter despair and the desire to employ the ultimate weapon of self-destruction? The Romantic era in…
London Handel Festival Double Bill: Tales of Apollo and Hercules
Quotations about – not from – myth festoon both stage (pre-performance) and the accompanying freesheet: ‘The lover of myth is in a sense a philosopher; for myth is composed of…
Superlative Performances from Vache Baroque at Magdalen College, Oxford
As part of the Music in Oxford series, the award-winning music ensemble Vache Baroque produced an artfully conceived programme built around Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis letter of 1897, written during…
La forza del destino in Lyon
Each early spring the Opéra national de Lyon imagines three operas within a vague thematic framework to comprise its Winter Festival. This year the theme is “Se saisir de l’avenir”…
Barbara Hannigan at the Barbican (II)
The second of Barbara Hannigan’s two March LSO concerts opened with a UK premiere: Golfam Khayam’s Je ne suis pas une fable à conter, which Hannigan commissioned and has already…
Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall
Founded in October 1964 by Amelia Freedman at the Royal Academy of Music, a shortish walk away from the Wigmore Hall, the Nash Ensemble is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary season,…