tue 19/03/2024

Opera Reviews

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.

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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.

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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 of Lohengrin in Strasbourg on Sunday.

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Giant, Linbury Theatre review - a vision fully realised

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 outsized body and soul revealed in sleep, and your patience will be rewarded. Sarah Angliss’s haunting Giant, premiered at last year's Aldeburgh Festival, is perfectly served by her own soundscape, a dedicated team of musicians and Sarah Fahie’s pitch-perfect production.

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Der fliegende Holländer, Royal Opera review - compellingly lucid with an austere visual beauty

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 Royal Opera House 15 years after it premiered there.

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

Boyd Tonkin

Trials by fire and water pale in comparison with trials by Arts Council England. English National Opera’s long torment has lately involved redundancy notices issued mid-performance and the enforcement of a sub-standard contract for chorus and musicians.

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

stephen Walsh

We can’t do without Così fan tutte; it’s an irresistible masterpiece. But it’s a thorn in the flesh of modern directors, who struggle to find the "relevance" they seem to need in order to get the wretched piece on to the stage.

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

Boyd Tonkin

Opera in Britain is currently cursed by funders, politicians and ideologues – of right and left – who heartily detest the form. Alas, some directors do their work for them with interpretations seemingly designed to undermine the very art they are employed to serve. English Touring Opera (rare beneficiaries of a recent boost to their public subsidy) have regularly excelled in the past. They will do so again.

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

Miranda Heggie

An opera about a day in the life of Karl Marx doesn’t exactly sound like a barrel of laughs. But then so much of Jonathan Dove’s witty 2018 work proves that things are not always what they seem, whether that’s through Dove’s jaunty score-writing, Charles Hart’s ingenious  libretto or Jürgen Weber’s drolly imagined scenario.

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

Robert Beale

Opera North have a new pairing for Mascagni’s popular but clichéd Cavalleria Rusticana in this double bill: an early Rachmaninov one-acter, written when he was 19. The production of the former is a revival of the one seen in 2017 in their Little Greats season, and its director then, Karolina Sofulak, has returned to create this Aleko alongside it.

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