A barge is moored along a wharf on the Seine River, the sluggish flow of which is a hard-working metaphor in Puccini’s one-act Il tabarro (The cloak) – for the…
Tag: BBC Proms
Prom 17: London premiere of Jennifer Walshe’s The Site of an Investigation
I am sure one could find something these two works had in common if one tried; one always can. The question is whether it would be anything more than a…
Prom 7: an ‘interventionist’ Dido and Aeneas from David Bates and La Nuova Musica
We have no idea what the first performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas sounded like, we’re not even sure when it took place. All we have are possibilities, probabilities, and a few…
Arcangelo perform Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the BBC Proms
When Arcangelo performed Handel’s Theodora on the penultimate evening of the 2018 Proms season, I wondered whether a small period-instrument ensemble and singers could surmount the challenges posed by the…
Polished performances from Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Bach & Handel
There’s no denying the energy and precision Sir John Eliot Gardiner can still coax from the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, founded by him over fifty years ago. In…
Tristan und Isolde: the London Philharmonic rise to epic heights, an inspired conductor … and two Tristans
I’m often left wondering with a great performance of Tristan und Isolde whether the true emotion of the work comes from the orchestra rather than the singers. There were moments…
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra celebrates Stravinsky at the Proms
When Stravinsky’s ‘one-act ballet with songs’, Pulcinella,was first performed in 1920 – by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, with choreography by Léonide Massine and designs by Pablo Picasso – the music was…
Prom 57: Wagner — Parsifal
Prom 57’s Parsifal (Mark Elder, the HallÈ) brought us John Tomlinson, perhaps the greatest Wagnerian bass of our time.
Stockhausen at the BBC Proms
The Royal Albert Hall was made for Karl-Heinz Stockhausen. BBC Prom 11 2013 featured Gesang der J¸nglinge and Welt-Parliament from Mittwoch from Licht.
BBC Proms: audiences return to the Proms in a celebration of live music
Six weeks of live concerts every day from the Royal Albert Hall in its 150th-anniversary year Audiences welcomed back to attend Proms in person A celebration of the riches of…