tue 19/03/2024

Opera reviews, news and interviews

Salome, Irish National Opera review - imaginatively charted journey to the abyss

David Nice

“Based on the play by Oscar Wilde,” declared publicity on Dublin buses and buildings, reminding opera-cautious citizens that the poet whose text Richard Strauss used for his own Salome grew up only 10 minutes’ walk away from Daniel Libeskind's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. Word of mouth, meanwhile, did much in a mere week of performances to spread the news that Sinéad Campbell Wallace’s interpretation of the fast-unravelling teenage princess was a sensation.

Jenůfa, English National Opera review - searing new cast in precise revival

David Nice

Face scarred, baby murdered – both crimes committed by those closest to her – village girl Jenůfa rises again with extraordinary strength of will. Of all affirmative endings in opera, Janáček’s has to be the most moving, and all the more so in this revival of David Alden’s clear and perceptive production as Jennifer Davis uses the power behind her beautiful lyric soprano to go the extra mile, as she always does.

 

theartsdesk in Strasbourg: crossing the frontiers

Boyd Tonkin

A single pair of swans glided serenely under the bridges of the river Ill as I walked to the premiere of the Opéra National du Rhin’s new production...

Giant, Linbury Theatre review - a vision fully...

David Nice

Abandon hope of the human comedy so precisely charted in Hilary Mantel’s related historical fiction The Giant, O’Brien, prepare for a vision of...

Der fliegende Holländer, Royal Opera review -...

Rachel Halliburton

The shadow of Nosferatu hangs heavily over Tim Albery’s powerfully austere staging of Wagner’s opera of desire and damnation, which returns to the...

The Magic Flute, English National Opera review - return of an enchanted evening

Boyd Tonkin

Simon McBurney's dark pantomime casts its spell again

Così fan tutte, Welsh National Opera review - relevance reduced to irrelevance

Stephen Walsh

School for lovers not much help to the singers

Manon Lescaut, English Touring Opera review - a nightmare in too many ways

Boyd Tonkin

Grotesque staging sabotages Puccini's breakthrough tragedy

Marx in London, Scottish Opera review - the humour of history made manifest

Miranda Heggie

A capital production of an unexpectedly comic opera

Cavalleria Rusticana/Aleko, Opera North review - a new foil for Mascagni

Robert Beale

Overlapping casting in two tragedies of infidelity and jealousy

Così fan tutte, Opera North review - a safe bet

Robert Beale

Voices and personalities in balance and contrast in revived Albery production

The Handmaid's Tale, English National Opera review - last chance saloon for sub-Atwood baggy monster

David Nice

Kate Lindsey is the saving, amazing grace of Poul Ruders’ lumpy music drama

Elektra, Royal Opera review - moral: don’t wait too long for revenge

David Nice

A great soprano now struggles with the toughest of roles

Albert Herring, Opera North review - immersive and intimate fun

Robert Beale

A gifted cast enliven Britten’s comedy of English village life

Jenůfa, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - a variegated but gorgeous bouquet

David Nice

Iron fist in velvet glove for Janáček's tale of horror and hope in a rural community

Best of 2023: Opera

David Nice

A year rich in new music-dramas and perfect ensembles

theartsdesk in Ravenna - Riccardo Muti passes on a lifetime's operatic wisdom

David Nice

Three unforgettable evenings with the most experienced living exponent of Italian opera

Michael Powell: a happy time with Bartók’s Bluebeard

David Nice

Fine performers in perfect balance with fantastical visuals for this profound one-act opera

Daphne, Scottish Opera, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - Strauss’s translucent hymn to nature

David Nice

A superb cast and glowing orchestra do justice to a late masterpiece

Rodelinda, The English Concert, Bicket, Saffron Hall review - perfect team helps us stay the long Handel course

David Nice

Saffron Hall celebrates its 10th anniversary in the greatest possible style

Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni, Royal College of Music review - a modest one-acter overloaded

David Nice

Good young singers get more opportunities than the actual work offers

Jephtha, Royal Opera review - uncomfortable sacrifice oratorio not seismic enough

David Nice

Sobriety and darkness eclipse Handel's dramatic vividness, despite strong performances

theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - four operas and a recital in one crazy day

David Nice

Youth takes the comedy award in fringe delights alongside a well-done schlocky rarity

theartsdesk in Ukraine - Stankovych's 'Psalms of War' at the Lviv National Opera

Ed Vulliamy

A powerful new work written in blood from the inside

Un ballo in maschera, Chelsea Opera Group, Cadogan Hall review - Italianate vitality, if not much finesse

David Nice

Broad brush strokes, but here was a world-class Verdi heroine in the making

La Rondine, Opera North review - rehabilitation for a Puccini damp squib?

Robert Beale

The romantic nostalgia of a world that vanished forever

Masque of Might, Opera North review - a tale of ecological virtue

Robert Beale

Pountney plunders Purcell to make the greenest show in a green season

Iolanthe, English National Opera review - still gorgeous but ever so slightly less funny than before

David Nice

Not all the cast changes are gains in revival of Cal McCrystal's funny and beautiful G&S

Faust, Irish National Opera review - world-class singing turns the musical-dramatic screw

David Nice

Fabulous principals and some good ideas to elevate Gounod's old-fashioned melodrama

Footnote: a brief history of opera in Britain

Britain has world-class opera companies in the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera North, not to mention the celebrated country-house festival at Glyndebourne and others elsewhere. The first English opera was an experiment in 1656, as Civil War raged between Cromwell and Charles II, and it was under the restored king that theatre and opera exploded in London. Henry Purcell composed the masterpiece Dido and Aeneas (for a girls' school) and over the next century Handel, Gluck, J C Bach and Haydn came to London to compose Italian-style classical operas.

Hogarth_Beggars_Opera_1731_cTateHowever, the imported style was challenged by the startling success of John Gay's low-life street opera The Beggar's Opera (1728), a score collating 69 folk ballads, which set off a wave of indigenous popular musical theatre (pictured, William Hogarth's The Beggar's Opera, 1731, © Tate). Gay built the first Covent Garden opera house (1732), where three of Handel's operas were premiered, and musical theatre and vaudeville flourished as an alternative to opera. Through the 19th century, London became a hub for visiting composers and grand opera stars, but from the meshing of "high" and "popular" creativity at Sadler's Wells (built in 1765) evolved in time a distinct English tradition of wit and social satire in the "Savoy" operas of Gilbert and Sullivan.

In the 20th century Benjamin Britten's dramatic operas such as Peter Grimes and Billy Budd reflected a different sort of ordinariness, his genius driving the formation of the English Opera Group at Aldeburgh. English opera, and opera in English, became central to the establishment, after the Second World War, of a national arts infrastructure, with subsidised resident companies at English National Opera and the Royal Opera. By the 1950s, due to pressure from international opera stars refusing to learn roles in English, Covent Garden joined the circuit of major international houses, staging opera in their original languages, with visiting stars such as Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi and the young Luciano Pavarotti matched by home-grown ones like Joan Sutherland and Geraint Evans.

Today British opera thrives with a reputation for fresh thinking in classics, from new productions of Mozart, Verdi and Wagner landmarks to new opera commissions and popular arena stagings of Carmen. The Arts Desk brings you the fastest overnight reviews and the quickest ticket booking links for last night's openings, as well as the most thoughtful close-up interviews with major creative figures and performers. Our critics include Igor Toronyi-Lalic, David Nice, Edward Seckerson, Alexandra Coghlan, Graham Rickson and Ismene Brown.

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