Otello, Royal Opera, ROH, Covent Garden, June 2017
June 22, 2017Putting Shakespeare on stage demands theatricality, which Keith Warner’s new production delivers right at the start with Iago spotlighted on a dark stage, an image repeated at the start of Act III with Otello himself. The massive ship in Act I, and actors creating merry havoc in the fight that Iago provokes between Cassio and …
Tosca, Nevill Holt Opera, NHO, June 2017
June 16, 2017This year’s Tosca at Nevill Holt produced by Oliver Mears, an intelligent director who clearly cares about the music, augurs well for his new appointment as artistic director of the Royal Opera. The setting, the troubled Italy of the 1970s when anti-establishment forces such as the Red Brigades were causing havoc, developed from an original …
Hamlet, Glyndebourne, GFO, June 2017
June 12, 2017Wow! As a friend remarked at the interval, during this hugely theatrical performance, “we were on the edge of our seats”. How did Australian composer Brett Dean and his librettist Matthew Jocelyn do it? Certainly Neil Armfield’s excellent direction, Jon Clark’s wonderful lighting, and the large set designs by Ralph Myers, which the performers themselves …
Tristan und Isolde, Longborough Festival Opera, LFO, June 2017
June 9, 2017Since this opened in 2015 celebrating sesqui-centenary of the opera, I have attended two other productions plus a terrific concert performance at Grange Park last summer, and one thing is clear. Less is more. While Bayreuth’s 2015 production abandoned their previous directorial absurdities the English National Opera went in the other direction with pretentious fussiness …
Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Grange Festival, June 2017
June 8, 2017As the applause swelled after this opening night of the new Grange Festival, musical director Michael Chance came on stage to thank everyone, singers and musicians included, quoting from Shakespeare’s Tempest that “Our revels now are ended”. It was a fitting end to an evening of excellent singing and musicianship that gave us Monteverdi’s late …
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