Ossia Cosi fan tutti, as you never could have possibly imagined it. French stage director Marie-Éve Signeyrole flipped the opera’s two titles, setting the second of the Mozart / DaPonte…
Manon in Paris
Les années folles in France [the roaring twenties in the USA] brought dancer Josephine Baker to Paris with her Bal Negre. In more recent times, the 2020 the Covid infection…
Monteverdi Choir and Masaaki Suzuki at St Martin-in-the-Fields
Making his debut with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, Masaaki Suzuki directed an all-Bach concert celebrating the 300th anniversary of five works (four cantatas and a Sinfonia) written in…
L’elisir d’amore sparkles at Garsington
Though firmly established as a theatre director – he is an Associate Artist of the RSC whose production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show has been touring for nearly 20…
Tchaikovsky’s disturbing but gripping Mazeppa at Grange Park
Scenes of torture, execution and bleak rows of coffins may not be the cheeriest of hors d’oeuvres before your interval bubbly. This is Grange Park Opera’s new staging of Tchaikovsky’s…
Sin, death and love: English sonnets with David Butt Philip
If you want an intellectual challenge, then power your way through the sonnets of John Donne, the leading exemplar of the school of Metaphysical Poets, as I and many other…
Idomeneo in San Francisco
To make a long story short, Ilia loves Idamande but can’t admit it. Elektra loves Idamante and admits it. Idomeneo loves his son Idamante but promised Neptune that he would…
La bohème in San Francisco [2025]
La bohème has played in forty-eight of San Francisco Opera’s 102 seasons. In fact, back in 1923 it was the inaugural piece of this grand old American opera company. Here’s…
Gothic horror meets Sigmund Freud in Saint-Saëns’s The Silver Bell at Winchester’s Theatre Royal
Of Camille Saint-Saëns’s thirteen operas, only Samson and Dalila remains a regular part of the repertory. So, the enterprising New Sussex Opera must be congratulated on presenting the UK premiere…
Enchantresses: Sandrine Piau at Wigmore Hall
Sandrine Piau’s recent Alpha disc (also Enchantresses) was mostly re-enacted in front of us (with a signing afterwards) for this remarkable concert at Wigmore Hall. The instrumental group used was…