Wagner
theartsdesk in Stockholm: the Birgit Nilsson Prize unites two great Wagnerian sopranosSaturday, 20 October 2018
Why are great Wagnerian singers the most down-to-earth and collegial in the world of opera? Perhaps you have to be to master and sustain the biggest roles in the business, ones which can't be performed in isolation, and a strong constitution helps,... Read more... |
BBC Philharmonic, Wellber, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - new conductor’s debutMonday, 08 October 2018
Two days after announcing his appointment as their next chief conductor (he takes the reins officially next summer, in time for the Proms), by remarkable good fortune the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic was able to present Omer Meir Wellber as the... Read more... |
Götterdämmerung, Royal Opera review - a fiery finale to this ambiguous cycleTuesday, 02 October 2018
And so it ends. Flames give way to water, and as the Rhinemaidens resume their naked dance we come full circle – quite literally in Keith Warner’s Wagner Ring – back where we began, on the banks of the Rhine. Once again we find ourselves on the... Read more... |
Siegfried, Royal Opera review - a truly fearless heroSunday, 30 September 2018
Siegfried is usually the problem with Siegfried. Even Stuart Skelton, top Tristan and currently singing an acclaimed Siegmund in this last revival of Keith Warner's rattlebag Ring, won't touch the longest, toughest heroic-tenor role in Wagner, the... Read more... |
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review – putting family before sexThursday, 27 September 2018
Perched alone and fearful in her hut as the curtain rises on Die Walküre, Sieglinde clutches and then throws aside a grimy teddy-bear. Story time is over. The nymphs and gold and bickering gods all belong in the past, to the ‘preliminary evening’ of... Read more... |
Das Rheingold, Royal Opera review - high drama and dark comedyTuesday, 25 September 2018
Keith Warner’s production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen was first seen at Covent Garden between 2004 and 2006, and is now back for a third and final series of full runs, chiefly to catch the Brünnhilde of Nina Stemme in three of the operas,... Read more... |
Parsifal, Saffron Opera Group review - drama and focusTuesday, 18 September 2018
It is a pleasure to report on the continuing success of the Saffron Opera Wagner project. The organisation was formed in 2013, and since then has presented concert performances of the Ring cycle and Meistersinger, and now Parsifal, all with an... Read more... |
Lohengrin, Royal Opera review - swan mystery musically illuminatedFriday, 08 June 2018
It's awfully long for a fairytale in which a mystery prince helps a damsel in distress, and she asks him the question she shouldn't. Myth tends to go deeper, as Wagner did in The Ring of the Nibelung after Lohengrin. Here he captures the magic of... Read more... |
Der fliegende Holländer, Longborough Festival review - stand and deliver on an empty stageThursday, 07 June 2018
Brilliant and innovative though it is in many respects, The Flying Dutchman is by no means a straightforward piece to stage. It’s an odd, sometimes uncomfortable mixture of the genre and the epic. At Sadler’s Wells in the sixties they had a little... Read more... |
Karen Cargill, Simon Lepper, Wigmore Hall review - opulence within boundsFriday, 25 May 2018
Singing satirist Anna Russell placed the French chanson in her category of songs for singers "with no voice but tremendous artistry". Mezzo Karen Cargill has tremendous artistry but also a very great voice indeed, a mysterious gift which makes her... Read more... |
Das Rheingold, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - orchestral revelations, but cursing Alberich trumps wooden WotanSunday, 28 January 2018
Vladmir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra have been to the bottom of the Rhine before, but in 2015 only did a whistlestop tour of the rest of Rheingold's terrain with an extensive array of excerpts. Having worked with the players on... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly Special: Callas LiveSaturday, 23 December 2017
Remastered they may be, but the 20 live operas recorded here between 1949 and 1964 vary soundwise from clean at best to atrocious, with all the caprices of stage noise and audience participation seemingly acceptable at the time (so often there's the... Read more... |
