Tag Archives: Ben McAteer

Iolanthe, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, February 2018

“A group of bombastic fairies going into battle with all these silly old buggers from the House of Lords” says director Cal McCrystal “… joyful and fun, with a hint of satirical steel”. McCrystal has a knack, a brilliant knack, of knowing what makes an audience laugh, never more so than in the Act II …

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From the House of the Dead, Welsh National Opera, WNO, Cardiff, October 2017

Hugely powerful and strangely life affirming. Janáček’s opera on Dostoyevsky’s novel about convicts in a Siberian prison camp might seem unpromising material, but the composer was a master at turning stories into dramatic masterpieces and this — his final opera — is extraordinary. Composed on hand written staves that did not always extend to a …

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The Devil Inside, Music Theatre Wales, Peacock Theatre, February 2016

This excellent collaboration between composer Stuart MacRae and novelist Louise Welsh brings to life Robert Louis Stephenson’s tale The Bottle Imp, about a demon trapped in a bottle. He will grant your every wish, but there is a catch. Anyone owning the bottle at death is condemned to eternal damnation, and an owner can only …

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Die Feen, Chelsea Opera Group, Queen Elizabeth Hall, March 2013

Wagner was 20 when he wrote this opera, and it was never performed in his lifetime. Seeing it in Fulham forty years ago I was amazed at its sophistication, and delighted with the Chelsea Opera Group’s concert performance last night. The two main characters, Arindal and Ada have the same names as in Wagner’s first …

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