Opera Reviews
The Tsar's Bride, Royal OperaThursday, 14 April 2011
Long before the curtain rose on this soapy operatic tale of power and poison, one big question loomed: could director Paul Curran, could anyone, bring Rimsky-Korsakov's sweet, doomed and very Russian bride to convincing life? The music's mostly strong, and unusually singer-friendly for this composer; the historically dodgy plot's patchy, but not inimical to resetting in the queasy milieu of the new Russian rich. Given the bloodstained start in a swish Moscow restaurant, I thought Curran... Read more... |
Fidelio, Opera North, Leeds Grand TheatreThursday, 14 April 2011
Unpleasant feelings of confinement and claustrophobia hit you when the curtain rises after Beethoven’s disconcertingly jolly overture; one small room is visible on stage, framed by black curtains. The sun shines oppressively through the barred windows, and the characters look constrained, physically awkward. After the occasionally over-the-top visuals of several recent Opera North...
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Iolanthe, Wilton's Music HallFriday, 01 April 2011
What's this? Goosebumps? Tears? Surely not in the usually brittle world of the Savoy operas. Yet handle Sullivan's pathos with tenderness, make everyone believe in a recognition scene between a sinning fairy and her preening peer of a husband, and the spectators will be putty in your hands. Read more... |
Piccard in Space, Queen Elizabeth HallThursday, 31 March 2011
I reviewed excerpts of Will Gregory's new opera, Piccard in Space, last year. His funky, plushly Moog-ed, concerto-like suite struck me as rather tasty. I even said that I couldn't wait for last night's fully worked-out operatic world premiere at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. How wrong I was. |
Fidelio, Royal Opera HouseTuesday, 29 March 2011
I have no problem at all with updating Beethoven's early-19th-century paean to love and liberty: there are any number of tyrants and prisoners of conscience to whom its universal message could apply. Read more... |
Intermezzo, Scottish Opera, Theatre Royal, GlasgowSunday, 27 March 2011
A glittering, gaudy surface and an epic, sometimes disturbing underbelly are what many of Klimt’s canvases and Richard Strauss’s autobiographical bourgeois comedy of marital misunderstanding have in common. It was the main idea of Wolfgang Quetes’s Scottish Opera extravaganza to bring those mythic resonances in harmony with the realist conversation-piece aspect of the opera. But you don’t do Intermezzo without a capricious heroine of huge charisma like Glyndebourne charmers... Read more... |
Orlando Furioso, Barbican HallSaturday, 26 March 2011
Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso has yielded more than its fair share of operatic spin-offs. Inspiring three operas apiece from both Handel and Vivaldi, as well as works from Lully, Haydn, Caccini and Rameau, its vivid stories of love, magic and revenge were plundered freely by composers for the better part of two centuries. It’s a rich seam of works, and one the Barbican is celebrating with a triptych of concerts. We’ve already had an exceptional Alcina from Minkowski... Read more... |
The Return of Ulysses, ENO, Young VicFriday, 25 March 2011
Wars have no end. Soldiers may come home, battlefields may be vacated, peace treaties signed, but scars remain. The violence of combat has a way of revisiting itself on the victors and vanquished and ravaging soul and state. Read more... |
A Magic Flute, CICT/Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Barbican TheatreThursday, 24 March 2011
Without the definite article, what kind of a Flute is Peter Brook's - beyond, that is, the literal manifestation of a stick on a string that makes no soothing noises? Best describe it as a crescent moon of a version, loosely based on Schikaneder's text with less than half of Mozart's music and matching slivers of voices, attached to mostly fledgling stage presences. The diminishing returns of Brook's operatic deconstructions, from the bold Tragedy of Carmen through the more... Read more... |
Rodelinda, Britten Theatre, Royal College of MusicMonday, 14 March 2011
A highlight of the London Handel Festival’s annual season is the opera, generally chosen from one of the dustier, more spidery corners of the composer’s repertoire. What a surprise then to see Rodelinda taking its turn this year. An undisputed classic, it’s also the opera that played perhaps the biggest part in reviving Handel’s fortunes on the stage in the 20th century. With aria after aria of generous and dramatic vocal writing and plenty of crowd-pleasing numbers, it’s also a... Read more... |
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