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.…
Wexford Festival Opera announces 2023 season
Women and War70 events, 13 days24 October – 5 November 2023 The programme for the 72nd Wexford Festival Opera has been announced by Artistic DirectorRosetta Cucchi. Centring around the theme…
Superb selection of Psalms from the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge
This recent collection of psalms from the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge is a fine tribute to the work of Andrew Nethsingha who has been its Director of Music…
Ukrainian opera companies honoured by International Opera Awards
Two Ukrainian opera companies were celebrated for their outstanding work in challenging circumstances at the International Opera Awards 2022 this evening [28 Nov]. The international opera world came together at Teatro Real…
It’s a Wonderful Life at English National Opera
For want of a mislaid £8000, both George Bailey’s company and his own reputation are on the brink of ruin, and he himself stands on a literal precipice, ready to…
The Rake’s Progress at the Royal Academy of Music
Blessed by varied approaches to its staging and performance, The Rake’s Progress seems to remain eternally itself (whatever that might mean, as a sometime Prince of Wales might have put…
Orpheus in the Underworld at the Royal College of Music
Identifying the influences which inform her new production of Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld at the Royal College of Music, director Louise Bakker cites ‘everything from Brideshead, Blackadder and…
Rachel Duckett and Thando Mjandana win the Voice of Black Opera Awards
The soprano and tenor were chosen as winners at the Grand Final concert of the competition, chosen by a panel of judges chaired by internationally renowned tenor and composer Tom…