opera directors
Der fliegende Holländer, Longborough Festival review - stand and deliver on an empty stageThursday, 07 June 2018Brilliant and innovative though it is in many respects, The Flying Dutchman is by no means a straightforward piece to stage. It’s an odd, sometimes uncomfortable mixture of the genre and the epic. At Sadler’s Wells in the sixties they had a little... Read more... |
Michael Chance on continuing opera in Hampshire: 'good people like to work with good people'Wednesday, 06 June 2018Out of the blue comes a phone call. A freelance career is based on those to a certain extent. Certainly mine has been. But this one was a bit different. “Would you come and talk to us about the way forward?”. I soon learnt that what this actually... Read more... |
Così fan tutte, Opera Holland Park review - the pain behind the prettinessSaturday, 02 June 2018A proper production of Così fan tutte should make you feel as if the script for a barrel-scraping Carry On film has been hi-jacked by Shakespeare and Chekhov – working as a team. The story is so silly (even nasty), the music so sublime. When, in... Read more... |
Die Zauberflöte, Garsington Opera review - visually stimulating, conceptually confusingFriday, 01 June 2018Something is afoot at Garsington this season. Walking past the lake you might just catch sight of three strange figures in the distance – white-clad pawns engaged in a solemn game of human chess. Continue towards the auditorium and, somewhere among... Read more... |
The Marriage of Figaro, English Touring Opera review - vanilla Mozart still tastes sweetThursday, 26 April 2018The Fates did not want theartsdesk to review English Touring Opera’s new production of The Marriage of Figaro. The Beast from the East intervened to prevent a colleague from covering it at the Hackney Empire at the start of its tour in February: now... Read more... |
The Moderate Soprano, Duke of York's Theatre review - love and opera with a flinty edgeSaturday, 14 April 2018"What could be more serious than married life?" asked Richard Strauss, whose operas became a surprising pillar of Glyndebourne's repertoire some time after the early days dramatised in David Hare's play. "Honour" might have been the answer of... Read more... |
Coraline, Royal Opera, Barbican review - spooky story, underwhelming scoreThursday, 05 April 2018With the eyes of musical fashion turned relentlessly on the calculating stage works of chilly alchemist George Benjamin, hopes ran high for a brighter spark in a new opera by his contemporary Mark-Anthony Turnage. Would Coraline, a music-drama for... Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, RNCM, Manchester review – an urban dreamMonday, 19 March 2018Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel is a ‘"fairytale opera" (its composer’s description), and yet one characteristic frequently commented on is its "Wagnerian" scoring. For this production, with David Pountney’s English translation, the RNCM... Read more... |
Wake, Birmingham Opera Company review - power to the peopleThursday, 15 March 2018“Would you like a veil?” asked a steward, offering a length of black gauze, and when you’re at a production by Birmingham Opera Company it’s usually wisest to say yes. You get used to it - the frantic Google-mapping to locate the venue; the hike... Read more... |
From the House of the Dead, Royal Opera review - Janáček's prison oddity prompts hot tearsThursday, 08 March 2018A political prisoner is brutally initiated into the life of a state penitentiary, and leaves it little over 90 minutes later. Four inmates reveal their brutal past histories with elliptical strangeness - each would need an episode of something like... Read more... |
Tosca, Welsh National Opera review - ticking the traditionalist boxesSaturday, 10 February 2018Opera-lovers: if you’ve finally had enough of the wheelchairs and syringes, the fifties skirts and heels, the mobile phones and the white box sets, and the rest of the symbolic paraphernalia of the right-on modern opera production, pop along to the... Read more... |
Cendrillon, RNCM, Manchester review - magic and spectacleFriday, 15 December 2017The Royal Northern College of Music’s production of Massenet’s Cendrillon has a particularly strong professional production team, and it shows. This is one of the most attractively spectacular operas the college has mounted for years.Director Olivia... Read more... |