Opera Reviews
Candide, LSO, Alsop, Barbican review - nearly the best of all possible...Monday, 10 December 2018
When the biggest laugh in Bernstein’s Candide goes to a narrator’s mention of how nationalism was sweeping through Europe, you may have a problem. Still, the Bernstein Centenary has been among the best of all possible anniversary celebrations this year and at the LSO Candide - the great man’s bonkers operetta-ish take on Voltaire, a flawed masterpiece with a succession of glorious tunes and snappy lyrics - could have been its apex. At times, it was. Read more...
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L'heure espagnole, Mid Wales Opera review - Ravel goes like clockworkSaturday, 01 December 2018
Mid Wales Opera makes small-scale touring look fun – even when you suspect that, behind the scenes, it really isn’t. Barely 24 hours before this performance of their current production of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole, and 11 dates into their current 16 date tour, their Torquemada, Peter van Hulle, was invalided out. Read more... |
War Requiem, English National Opera review - a striking spectacle, but oddly unmovingSaturday, 17 November 2018
We’re not good at lack these days. Just look at the concert hall, where increasingly you turn up to find not just an orchestra and soloists but a giant screen. Videos, projections, live speakers, "virtual choirs"; if there’s so much as a chink of an opening in the music, you can bet that someone will try and fill it. It seems to come from a place of generosity, a desire to reach out, to supplement, to amplify, to explain, just in case we didn’t feel or see or understand before. Read more... |
Simon Boccanegra, Royal Opera review - a timely revival of Verdi's political music-dramaFriday, 16 November 2018
Political machinations and backroom power-brokering, leadership battles and unscrupulous rivals – if ever there was an opera for this week it’s Simon Boccanegra. Premiered in 1857 but only coming into its own after substantial revisions in 1881, Verdi’s problem-child of a piece had its own struggle for survival and success, and the work’s rather lumpy dramatic architecture shows the scars of its various grafts and interventions. Read more... |
The Silver Tassie, BBCSO, Barbican review - a bracing memorial for the WW1 anniversarySunday, 11 November 2018
In a week of flickering memorial candles and cascading poppies we’ve all been asked to contemplate the pity of war – to remember and to seek consolation in beauty and silence. But before we can earn that consolation and mourn in that silence there must surely be rage and noise, bloody specificity before aesthetic abstraction. Read more... |
The Rake's Progress, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - supreme fluency from Eden to BedlamMonday, 05 November 2018
Lightness and gravity in perfect equilibrium have always graced Vladimir Jurowski's Stravinsky. Read more... |
Serse, Fagioli, Il Pomo d'Oro, Barbican review - a night in counter-tenor heavenSaturday, 27 October 2018
What a scrumptious spread of musical virtuosity the Barbican has laid on with the aid of its international guests this week. Read more... |
Car, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Tognetti, Milton Court review - a rattlebag of happy collaborationsThursday, 25 October 2018
Presenting the last Mozart symphonies as a three-act opera for orchestra, as Richard Tognetti and his febrile fellow Australians did on Monday, was always going to be a supreme challenge. It worked, as Boyd Tonkin reported here. Read more... |
Verdi's Requiem, Royal Opera, Pappano review - all that heaven allowsWednesday, 24 October 2018
Here it comes - get a grip. The tears have started flowing in the trio "Quid sum miser" and 12 minutes later, as the tenor embarks on his "Ingemisco" solo, you have to stop the shakes turning into noisy sobbing. The composer then lets you off the hook for a bit, but only transcendent beauty in singing and playing can achieve quite this effect in Verdi's Requiem. Read more... |
Juliana, Nova Music Opera, St John's Smith Square review - new version of a classic dramaTuesday, 23 October 2018
Joseph Phibbs is not the first composer to make an opera out of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, and it is not difficult to see the operatic appeal of this taut, passionate three-handed drama. Read more... |
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