opera directors
Best of 2015: OperaWednesday, 30 December 2015
How ironic that English National Opera turned out possibly the two best productions of the year after the Arts Council had done its grant-cutting worst, punishing the company simply, it seemed, for not being the irrationally preferred Royal Opera.... Read more... |
Orlando, Welsh National OperaMonday, 28 September 2015
It’s almost impossible to imagine what a Handel opera performance can have been like in London in the 1730s, when Orlando first appeared. The audience came primarily to hear their favourite singers: and these must have been sensational, if not... Read more... |
Listed: Essential Operas 2015-16Tuesday, 01 September 2015
September is upon us and it’s nearly time for the new season. English National Opera’s Artistic Director John Berry may have left the building but his enterprising legacy lives on in a 2015-16 season that looks on paper as good as any in the past 20... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Aix: Dreaming onFriday, 10 July 2015
Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens with creepy glissandi emanating from the pit like nocturnal spirits. There is no mention in the score – this is an educated guess – for the chirrup of swifts and the hoot of wood pigeons, but this avian... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Aix-en-Provence: Let's make a Euro-operaTuesday, 07 July 2015
It’s a brilliantly sunny January afternoon amidst a general drama of rain at an industrial park outside Aix-en-Provence, and members of a production team are gathering for the first time in the back yard of the festival’s rehearsal studios. Some... Read more... |
Opinion: Where's the crisis at ENO?Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Having been bowled over by the total work of art English National Opera made of Wagner’s The Mastersingers of Nuremberg on its first night, I bought tickets immediately afterwards for the final performance. So I’m off tonight to catch the farewell... Read more... |
Glare, Linbury Studio TheatreSaturday, 15 November 2014
Søren Nils Eichberg’s new opera Glare is advertised as a “taut” thriller. It’s actually a short thriller. Big difference.The question of whether or not opera – a medium that wouldn’t win any prizes for sprinting – can successfully pull off a... Read more... |
La Traviata, Opera NorthSunday, 21 September 2014
You’d expect a regional opera company to focus on the core repertoire in these economically challenging times. Happily, Opera North’s La traviata is a new staging and not a weary revival. Alessandro Talvi’s production doesn’t take many risks and... Read more... |
Alright on the Night: at Glyndebourne with the OAESaturday, 09 August 2014
If you only ever listened to opera from recordings, you might overlook the fact that it's as much theatre as it is music. In the opera house on the night, it's all well and good for the orchestra to play the score and the singers to sing their parts... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Buxton: Dvořák rarity, Gluck tercentenaryMonday, 14 July 2014
Buxton has gone Bohemian, digging into Dvořák’s treasure trove and celebrating Gluck’s tercentenary. The choice of Dvořák’s The Jacobin fits the Buxton Festival tradition of rooting out neglected works, since this has been unjustly overlooked since... Read more... |
The Barber of Seville, Longborough FestivalFriday, 04 July 2014
Speaking from the stage before curtain-up on The Barber, Longborough’s founder and chairman, Martin Graham, stressed the hard work put in by director Richard Studer and conductor Jonathan Lyness on their two 2014 productions, this one and Tosca. He... Read more... |
Ariadne auf Naxos, Royal OperaThursday, 26 June 2014
Can it really be 12 years since Antonio Pappano inaugurated his transformative era as the Royal Opera’s Music Director conducting Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos? Christof Loy’s production seemed so radical at the time. We were put off our guard by... Read more... |
