In his first production since taking up his appointment as Director of Opera in 2017,Oliver Mears’s thought-provoking staging clearly acknowledges Rigoletto as a timeless classic. His presentation debuted in September…
Tag: Royal Opera House London
Tosca returns to Covent Garden
Oh, what a difference a couple of months makes – Tosca returns to the Royal Opera, same production (the long-running Jonathna Kent) but with a new cast and conductor. December…
Bravura and brutality: Irish National Opera bring Vivaldi’s Bajazet to the Royal Opera House
In this age of copyright, the pasticcio – in which pre-existing arias by various composers are assembled to make a ‘new’ work – is a somewhat discredited form, generally regarded…
Handel’s Theodora at the Royal Opera House
Theodora is ‘coming home’ … but not as you know it, was the essential message of the press briefings issued by the Royal Opera House in the run up to…
Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House
As an exploration of 18th-century class structures Le nozze di Figaro is a timeless classic which no number of revivals will diminish. With its thumb-nosing at society’s upper echelons, it’s no…
A stirring Nabucco at Covent Garden
The run-up to curtain-up wasn’t auspicious. The Royal Opera House prefaced this opening night of the revival of Daniele Abbado’s 2013 production of Nabucco with an earlier announcement that the…
Puccini’s Tosca at the Royal Opera House
Jonathan Kent’s production of Tosca has been running at the Royal Opera House since 2006; this is its ninth revival. It is no surprise it is still there in repertoire.…
Simon Keenlyside and Anna Pirozzi: chilling psychopaths in Covent Garden’s impressive revival of Macbeth
Macbeth is the first great fusion of music and drama in Verdi’s operas. It needs a great production, however, to bring those elements together and this is largely what Phyllida…
A standing ovation for Lisette Oropesa in the Royal Opera House’s revival of La traviata
Given the tubercular demise of Verdi’s tragic heroine, it’s tempting to describe the ROH’s latest reprise of Richard Eyre’s 1994 production of Verdi’s La traviata in pandemic terms – in…
Exclusive first look behind the scenes of Katie Mitchell’s thrilling new production of Handel’s Theodora
Acclaimed director Katie Mitchell’s gripping new production of Handel’s Theodora opens at the Royal Opera House on Monday 31st January 2022. Not heard in Covent Garden since its 1750 premiere,…