Tag Archives: Flora McIntosh

Ariadne auf Naxos, Longborough Festival Opera, LFO, July 2018

One of Richard Strauss’s greatest works, with a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, this juxtaposes a young composer’s new opera on the plight of Ariadne with a commedia dell’arteĀ  entertainment, both to be performed for guests at the house of one of the super-rich. In the opera story Ariadne has absconded with Theseus, after helping …

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Polyeucte, UC Opera, Theatre Royal, Stratford East, March 2018

Every year UCL produces a little known operatic gem and this time it was the turn of Gounod’s Polyeucte, not previously staged in the UK. The story, based on a play of the same name by the 17th century playwright Pierre Corneille, was the basis for Donizetti’s Poliuto, later turned into a French opera as …

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