Britten
Michael Chance on continuing opera in Hampshire: 'good people like to work with good people'Wednesday, 06 June 2018
Out 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... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, ENO review - shiveringly beautiful BrittenFriday, 02 March 2018
“What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” Hang on a minute, Tytania, there are no flowers. Instead, as Britten’s ominously low strings slither and tremble up and down the scale, the curtain rises on a huge, near-acidic emerald green hilly slope... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Morton Feldman, Maria MarchantSaturday, 14 October 2017
Bach: Keyboard Concertos, Italian Concerto Sonya Bach (piano), English Chamber Orchestra/John Mills and Stephanie Gonley (leaders) (Rubicon)There's no shortage of decent recordings of Bach concertos played on piano. I’d probably rescue my Murray... Read more... |
Prom 13 review: Rana, BBCSO, Davis – Malcolm Sargent tribute lacks punchTuesday, 25 July 2017
Ten days ago I reviewed the First Night of the 2017 Proms. Last night I was back at the Royal Albert Hall to hear the First Night of the 1966 Proms. This time-capsule experience was courtesy of a re-enactment of Sir Malcolm Sargent’s 500th Prom, in... Read more... |
Buxton Festival review - early Verdi, earlier Mozart and refreshing BrittenMonday, 10 July 2017
“The subject is neither political nor religious; it is fantastical” wrote Verdi to the librettist Piave about his opera Macbeth. “The opera is not about the rise of a modern fascist: nor is it about political tyranny. It is a study in character”... Read more... |
'Oh, the glamour!' - Roderick Williams weighs up a singer's lifeThursday, 06 July 2017
“So, what do you do for a living?” You might think this question, the mainstay of any polite conversation with a new acquaintance, would be just the moment any opera singer would relish. Here is the chance to declare who we are, what we do, and to... Read more... |
Albert Herring, The Grange Festival review - playing it straight yields classic comedy goldMonday, 26 June 2017
Perfect comedies for the country-house opera scene? Mozart's Figaro and Così, Strauss's Ariadne - and Britten's Albert Herring, now 70 years and a few days old, but as ageless as the rest. With the passing of time it's ever more obvious that this... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Snape MaltingsSaturday, 10 June 2017
It’s all there in the first few bars of Britten’s music – that unsettling tension between beauty and familiarity, and eerie, undefinable otherness. Those cello glissandi might end in glowing major chords, but the tentacle-like slides throw them into... Read more... |
'The challenge is to make something of not very much': Iestyn Davies on Britten's OberonThursday, 08 June 2017
Tomorrow Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream will begin a short run at the Snape Maltings, Suffolk in a new production directed by Netia Jones and conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. It will mark the high point of the Aldeburgh Festival’s summer... Read more... |
Little, CBSO, Seal, Symphony Hall BirminghamFriday, 02 June 2017
The CBSO is justifiably proud of its association with Benjamin Britten. There’s rather less proof that he reciprocated, dismissing the orchestra as "second-rate" after it premiered his War Requiem in 1962. Throughout the 1950s, he’d repeatedly... Read more... |
Gerhardt, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings PlaceMonday, 09 January 2017
What's not to like, or love, would have to be the sensible response to both the opening programme of Kings Place's year-long Cello Unwrapped festival at Kings Place and its life-enhancing execution. Symmetries abounded – between Alban Gerhardt's... Read more... |
Billy Budd, Opera NorthWednesday, 19 October 2016
"That cursed mist" may hide the French from the crew of the HMS Indomitable and cause far more deadly damage to moral certainty. But clarity and strength are the assets of Orpha Phelan's new production for Opera North: no gimmicks, superb company... Read more... |
