The Elixir of Love in San Francisco

That’s L’elisir d’amore, Donizetti’s bel canto gem, dolled up somewhere on the Italian riviera by the same team that set San Francisco Opera’s 2012 Lohengrin in a Soviet era, bookless…

Anthony Roth Costanzo makes his debut at Wigmore Hall with La Nuova Musica

On the page this looked rather a rag-bag sort of programme.  Some early Mozart opera seria arias and songs, alongside two of Gluck’s best-known arias from Orfeo ed Euridice, welded…

Forget This Night: a new disc by Katharine Dain and Sam Armstrong

Lili Boulanger’s life and composing career were tragically all too brief.  Born in 1893, into an eminent musical family, she was both a prodigy and a pioneer, becoming the first…

Musically powerful Don Giovanni from Glyndebourne

First unveiled at Glyndebourne in May (review), Paul Higgins’s revival of Don Giovanni leaves Mariame Clément’s interpretation largely untouched, yet questions about her staging and its ambiguities remain unexplained.  Most…

Omar in San Francisco

The black man Omar Ibn Said was forcibly brought from sub-Saharan Africa to South Carolina in 1807. He was sold, becoming an indentured person for life (d. 1863). Omar the…

Handel’s Jephtha at the Royal Opera House

Voices cut through the darkness, chanting in prayer.  A candle flickers centre-stage.  These are potent symbols of the fundamentalism and fire that drive Handel’s Jephtha and of the battle between…

Francisco Guerrero from The Brabant Ensemble

Known by his contemporaries as ‘El cantor de Maria’, Francisco Guererro (1528-99) was a much-travelled musician and composer whose career bridged the gap between Cristóbal de Morales and Tomás Luis…

Annabel Arden’s L’elisir d’amore brings autumn sunshine to Glyndebourne

The first day of what would have been Glyndebourne’s 2023 Autumn Tour, had not Arts Council England swung its financial axe, was as sunny and bright as the score which…

Winners announced for 2023 International Opera Awards

The world of opera came together in Warsaw tonight [9 November 2023] for a star-studded ceremony at Teatr Wielki, Polish National Opera, Warsaw at which the winners of the 2023 International Opera Awards were…

Perfection, of a Kind: Britten vs. Auden – City of London Sinfonia at the Queen Elizabeth Hall

‘I’ve seen & am seeing Auden a lot, & our immediate future is locked with his, it seems.’  So wrote Benjamin Britten to his sister, Barbara, on 3 September 1939.[1]…