Tag: Royal Opera House

Skimming through some of the critical literature on the myth of Electra – who, following the murder of her father, the Mycenaean King Agamemnon, at the hands of her mother…

Hunger and gluttony; poverty and glamour; homelessness and tinselly angels; the reality of rags and the sparkle of magic.  The stark juxtapositions evident on the Strand, during my walk from…

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…

One of my opera-loving friends, a singer and musician herself and a regular devotee of both opera and ballet at the Royal Opera House and elsewhere, never attends performances of…

This was an evening of big voices and grand theatrical vision.  When Christof Loy’s production of Verdi’s La forza del destino was first seen at the Royal Opera House, in…

One might argue with Covent Garden’s pre-publicity claim that this Rheingold is‘a bold new imagining’, but this first collaboration between director Barrie Kosky and conductor Anthony Pappano brings a wonderfully…

Irrespective of the version of Don Carlo used, or the language in which it is sung, this is an uneven opera. The Verdi of the first two acts is, in…

Nawal El Saadawi’s 1975 novel, Woman at Point Zero, presents an ‘eve of death-row’ narrative which is a chilling indictment of patriarchal society.  An Egyptian woman, Firdaus, has been convicted…

There are those productions that linger in the memory for months, even years. Then there are those that fade all too quickly from consciousness, consigned to history and best forgotten.…