Opera Features

The Seckerson Tapes: Soprano Amanda Roocroft

Edward Seckerson Tuesday, 21 September 2010

Amanda Roocroft was a star from the moment she graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music. At 25, Sir Georg Solti asked her to sing Pamina at the Salzburg Festival. She declined. It was too soon. Where would there be left to go? "Hurry slowly" would seem to have been her motto and now that she is playing - for the first time - a diva with 300 years of experience, the decisions she has made in her career are more than ever falling into perspective.

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Rights Grab at The Royal Opera House

Natalie Wheen Monday, 20 September 2010

For a creator of any kind, keeping control over what happens to their original work is essential. Their creativity is their livelihood, and their reputation is built on it. They protect it fiercely from other people copying it, altering it, selling it - anything in fact which devalues the work and damages the creators’ earning capacity from it.

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The Seckerson Tapes: Director Des McAnuff

Edward Seckerson Tuesday, 14 September 2010

Des McAnuff, whose Broadway shows have garnered a staggering 18 Tony Awards

In the 1960s Des McAnuff played guitar and wrote songs to meet girls. Subsequently life became a little more complicated for the multi-talented writer/ director. His long-standing commitment to the Shakespeare Festival Theatre at the other Stratford - in Ontario, Canada - has won him many plaudits and he is now director emeritus of the La Jolla Playhouse in California where so many important projects have germinated, including his Tony Award-winning production of The Who's Tommy...

The Seckerson Tapes: Melody Moore Interview

Edward Seckerson Monday, 13 September 2010

Melody Moore: The aptly named American soprano

Melody Moore is well named. Her parents must have had a sixth sense that she would be "melodious". This exciting young American soprano has been making waves on both sides of the Atlantic. She has established footholds at both San Francisco and Los Angeles Opera and in the 2008/9 season made her English National Opera debut in Jonathan Miller's new production of La bohème. She returns to the ENO this season as Marguerite in Des McAnuff's new staging of Gounod's Faust, a...

theartsdesk in Berlin: Requiem for a Shaker-Upper

Kate Connolly Saturday, 28 August 2010

Christoph Schlingensief: 'described as Germany's most disciplined anarchist'

It is tempting to playfully twist the German language a little to come up with a word that best describes the avant garde German theatre and film director Christoph Schlingensief. A “Wachrüttler”, literally a shaker-upper or rouser, is probably the best title to describe a man who seemed to put every vein and sinew of his body into shaking German society awake. The loss of Schlingensief, who died of lung cancer last Saturday aged 49, has left a gaping hole in the German arts world.

Remembering Charles Mackerras

David Nice Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Perhaps we can drop the "sir" here, as he preferred, though most of the contributors below only knew him in his knighted later years. No death of a musical great, at least since the departure of Mstislav Rostropovich, has caused such a flurry of tributes and reminiscences, even if many of us were long prepared for the end and marvelled at the way he soldiered on to give more great performances in his final year. Tributes from Kit Armstrong, Isobel Buchanan, Colin Currie, ...

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theartsdesk in Buxton: The Buxton Festival

Hilary Whitney Sunday, 18 July 2010

As I alight from the train at Macclesfield and scramble into the back of the taxi which will take me on the 20-minute journey across the Pennines to Buxton and its eponymous festival, the driver announces with grim satisfaction, “I am now going to take you on one of the most dangerous roads in Britain.”

UK Festivals 2010 Round-Up

ismene Brown Tuesday, 06 July 2010

Get your tent and ice-box and plan your summer's entertainment with theartsdesk's definitive clickable festival guide - listings and links for all the UK festivals this summer, from heavy rock by Scottish lochs to Morris-dancing in the south west, and taking on opera, classical and major international arts festivals for good measure.

The Seckerson Tapes: Christophe Rousset Interview

Edward Seckerson Monday, 05 July 2010

The apartment is shared with a Burmese cat named Hermione and two no less exquisite and venerable harpsichords.

The Seckerson Tapes: Edward Gardner Interview

Edward Seckerson Sunday, 20 June 2010

Edward Gardner is no longer English National Opera's best kept secret. The former choral scholar and repetiteur goes from strength to strength helming ENO through productive and interesting times. The world's stages are now beckoning. During a break in final rehearsals for Mozart's great opera seria Idomeneo in a new production from multi-media queen Katie Mitchell he talks informally about what being music director of a company like this entails.

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