It’s Pride Month, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis can be justifiably “proud” of its absorbing new production of Harvey Milk, in its most recent iteration by composer Stewart Wallace…
London premiere of Tom Coult’s Violet at the Hackney Empire
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the starsDid wander darkling in the eternal space,Rayless, and pathless, and the ice earthSwung blind…
Handsome performances in Verdi’s Otello from Grange Park Opera
Shadows, suspicion and saintliness each find a tragic outlet in Grange Park Opera’s Otello – Verdi’s late masterpiece, prompted by his publisher and premiered in 1887 following a period of…
Die tote Stadt at Longborough Festival Opera
‘Bruges était sa morte. Et sa morte était Bruges.’ In his novella Bruges-la-Morte (1892), the Belgian symbolist author George Rodenbach makes clear the affinity between the ‘dead city’, Bruges, and…
The Excursions of Mr Brouček at Grange Park Opera
Hats off to Grange Park Opera for unquestionably the best of the four ‘country house’ operas I have seen so far this season. First, and perhaps most important, with respect…
A Wounded Butterfly at Covent Garden
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, beautiful though it is, presents issues for contemporary values; hence the current rethink of the Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier production. The Royal Opera brought in Japanese…
PwC announces extended new two-year sponsorship of Wexford Factory as 2022/23 Factory Artists are unveiled
The new participants of the Wexford Factory have been announced. The brainchild of Wexford Festival Opera’s (WFO) Artistic Director, Rosetta Cucchi, the Wexford Factory is a professional academy for young…
Rouvali’s mighty and stereophonic ‘Resurrection’ closes his first season with the Philharmonia
The final concert of the Philhamonia Orchestra’s Spring-Summer season came to an end with that greatest of Mahler blockbuster symphonies, the choral ‘Resurrection’. It also marked the end of Santtu-Matias…
Thrilling Macbeth from the Grange Festival
Verdi’s operatic makeover of Shakespeare’s Scottish play was given a highly charged staging at the Grange Festival when I caught up with it on its second night. From the Preludio’s…
Georges Bizet’s Carmen at Opera Holland Park
Carmen was the last opera I saw before the end of the world. Not necessarily what I would have chosen; for many of my friends it was Fidelio, whose absence…