ENO
Madam Butterfly, English National OperaTuesday, 15 October 2013
When the going gets tough, wheel out a crowd-pleaser. Even by its own volatile standards English National Opera has had a poor start to its autumn season, with productions of Fidelio and Die Fledermaus that seem destined to join the company’s ever-... Read more... |
Die Fledermaus, English National OperaTuesday, 01 October 2013
Rich, racy, randy and irreverent: such were the R words gathered up by a Canadian critic to capture the essence of Christopher Alden’s production of Johann Strauss’s cork-popping operetta when it premiered in Toronto last year. Other R words, alas,... Read more... |
Fidelio, English National OperaThursday, 26 September 2013
The first words we hear don’t belong to Fidelio at all. The first music does, but not at all where you expect to find it. If you’ve read your programme (and who does before the show begins?) you’ll find a poem entitled “Labyrinth” by Jorge Luis... Read more... |
Performers: A Season in PhotographsSaturday, 06 July 2013
A stage performance in any art form communicates through sound and motion. A photographer's task is to capture the dramatic experience in the silence and stillness of the 2D image. In the worlds of ballet and opera, none does it with more commitment... Read more... |
Death in Venice, English National OperaSunday, 16 June 2013
Austere, beautiful, heartbreaking, streaked with genius - that goes for both Benjamin Britten’s last opera Death in Venice and Deborah Warner’s remarkable production of it for ENO, returning all too briefly to the Coliseum, with a superb central... Read more... |
The Perfect American, English National OperaSunday, 02 June 2013
There were a small but substantial number of children dotted around the auditorium at the opening night of The Perfect American, and one hopes they hadn’t been led to expect singalong-a-Disney, all bright colours and catchy tunes. The piece takes... Read more... |
Wozzeck, English National OperaSunday, 12 May 2013
If you should take your seats prematurely in the London Coliseum you’ll find yourself confronted with a group of serving British soldiers. You’ll shift a little uneasily under their gaze. There they are, staring, smoking, loitering; there we are, on... Read more... |
La bohème, English National OperaTuesday, 30 April 2013
I’m not one to get misty-eyed over La bohème (unless it be a red mist of rage), but this second revival of Jonathan Miller’s production at English National Opera brought me closer than any yet to understanding the snuffling, lip-quivering reactions... Read more... |
Sunken Garden, English National Opera, Barbican TheatreSaturday, 13 April 2013
Sunken Garden is described officially as a “film opera”. Two words. Emphatically unhyphenated. No attempt made to neologise or fashion some third-way genre terminology. It’s not a symbol that bodes well for mutually-informed, sensitive... Read more... |
10 Questions for Writer David MitchellWednesday, 10 April 2013
“If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin and say, ‘When you’re ready.’” The words belong to Jason Taylor, the stammering 13-year-old poet protagonist of David Mitchell's novel Black Swan... Read more... |
The Barber of Seville, English National OperaTuesday, 26 February 2013
There is only one rule by which one should ever judge a Barber of Seville. If your eyes (and possibly also your trouser legs) aren’t moist by the time the interval arrives, you might as well leave. The last time this Jonathan Miller production was... Read more... |
Medea, English National OperaSaturday, 16 February 2013
How do you solve a problem like Medea? Euripides’ baby-killing, hell-invoking sorceress is one of literature’s most terrifying and unfathomable creations – a woman capable of murdering her own children just to watch their father’s pain. Yet with the... Read more... |
