tue 19/03/2024

Bryn Terfel

First Night of the 2012 Proms

Two weeks to go to the Olympics, of course, but the Proms Olympics – 84 concerts in 60 days – have already taken off, with Britain placed first, second, third and fourth. For last night’s First Night concert was one where everything except Canadian...

Read more...

Welsh Week: Dinefwr, Adain Avion, Llangollen, BrynFest

This Friday afternoon at five o’clock, the National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke will recite a new poem and initiate a seismic week of Welsh cultural exploration. The inaugural Dinefwr Literary Festival will bring writers and musicians from Wales...

Read more...

theartsdesk in Hay-on-Wye: More Light than Heat at Hay 25

To each their own Hay. The Roman encampment that is the modern-day literary festival, circled by pantechnicons and trending in the Twittersphere, looks very much like a monomaniacal content provider for all comers. Astroturf walkways deliver the...

Read more...

Tosca, Royal Opera

Tosca-at-Covent-Garden is a commodity, like bacon-for-breakfast - a pricier commodity, to be true, at officially up to £229.50 a seat, but in both cases people want to get what they expect. For the final performances next month in this summer...

Read more...

Stephen Sondheim at 80, Royal Albert Hall

Everybody in the business says don’t think Sondheim is easy. I’ve seen galas where big names stumbled in under-rehearsed numbers, and last night Bryn Terfel and Maria Friedman slipped and almost fell on the same banana skins that had done for...

Read more...

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Welsh National Opera, Cardiff

Only those who think the burnt-out question of Wagner and the Nazis can still be brought to bear on his operas could be disappointed by Richard Jones's life-enhancing new production. Not a swastika in sight, not a hint of anti-semitic caricature for...

Read more...

Bryn Terfel, Royal Festival Hall

Bryn Terfel is a good guy. I know; he never forgets a face, and I’ve seen him making the tea for the entire team at a recording session – no one-off, they assured me. Yet the nature of the bass-baritone beast is given over to more villains than...

Read more...
Subscribe to Bryn Terfel