Barnaby Smith’s debut solo disc was titled, simply, Handel. This, his second, once again a collaboration with the Illyria Consort, announces its focus with similar succinctness: Bach. It is, in…
Leoncavallo’s Zingari: another gem from Opera Rara
When Ruggero Leoncavallo’s one-act dramma lirico, Zingari, premiered at the London Hippodrome in September 1912, the Manchester Guardian noted that the large audience greeted it with enthusiastic applause, repeatedly calling…
Echo: Ruby Hughes and Huw Watkins at Wigmore Hall
Travelling into central London on Sunday afternoon was a slightly strange experience. At least there were trains – never a given these strike-strife days – but footfall was light, despite…
Sorrow and Serenity from Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at the Barbican Hall
There seems to be much sorrow in the world at the moment, but little serenity. This concert by the London Symphony Orchestra thus offered a welcome balancing of affekts, the…
McVicar’s The Magic Flute returns to the Royal Opera House
David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute is well on its way to its 20th anniversary (the production debuted in 2003). The current revival (seen 19 December 2022) is…
Rattle’s Stravinsky Journey with the LSO
Criticism of Simon Rattle as a conductor might be justified in several ways; as a creator and innovator of concert programs, however, such criticism would be very wide of the…
Eternal Heaven: Jupiter Ensemble perform Handel at Wigmore Hall
A seamless sequence of beautiful arias and duets by Handel, balancing the secular and the sacred, the tranquil and the tempestuous, the sumptuous and the sophisticated – all brilliantly performed…
Lohengrin at Bayerische Staatsoper
Pity the modern European stage director confronted with Lohengrin. The music is famously seductive, but the plot is abhorrent. What is one to make of a saint who arrives on…
A Child of Our Time: a performance of modern relevance – LPO and Edward Gardner
There is, in part, a trait of cowardice that haunts some of the artists, composers and poets who were working just before the Second World War. Some of W. H.…
Glyndebourne announces it will no longer tour in 2023 following cut in Arts Council funding
Glyndebourne regrets to announce that it will no longer be able to tour as planned in 2023, following a reduction to its Arts Council England (ACE) funding for touring and…