Magic Flute, Welsh National Opera, March 2023
March 20, 2023Mozart’s final opera, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) is a masterpiece. It sets the realm of night and obscurantism against that of daylight and rational thinking. These opposing worlds are ruled by the Queen of the Night, and Sarastro, named after the great Iranian prophet Zoroaster. Sadly the depth of this opera is lost in …
Akhnaten, English National Opera, March 2023
March 19, 2023Open are the double doors of the horizon/ Unlocked are its bolts. Thus intones the Scribe at the start of Philip Glass’s opera Akhnaten about an extraordinary king of Egypt. The staging starts with the funeral of his father Amenhotep III, and the transfer of power. It ends with modern archaeologists examining ancient fragments, and a …
Lucrezia Borgia, and Il Viaggio a Reims, English Touring Opera, ETO, March 2023
March 6, 2023English Touring Opera is a gem of a company. It creates sensible productions and tours them widely from Exeter to Durham. This review covers Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia and Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims. Unable to afford big name directors who sometimes bend the original creation to their will, ETO gives us what the composer intended, allowing …
Rusalka, Royal Opera, February 2023
February 26, 2023Can a force of nature acquire a soul? This is what the water nymph Rusalka wants, to become human. As she says to her father the water spirit Vodník, humans have souls and go to heaven when they die. But souls are full of sin, says Vodník, … and of love she responds. Dvořak’s opera Rusalka pits the powers of nature, particularly …
Rheingold, English National Opera, February 2023
February 22, 2023This new staging of Rheingold is part of a new production of Wagner’s Ring being produced in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Director Richard Jones has given us a clear set of allusions in a modern setting, rather than a simplistic interpretation overlaid with subtleties that no audience member can fathom without reading …
See all Theatre Reviews