Tag Archives: Jean Kalman

Billy Budd, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, April 2019

A hugely moving performance of Deborah Warner’s new production under the baton of Ivor Bolton, with Toby Spence superb as Captain Vere, with Brindley Sherratt a vivid Claggart, and Jacques Imbrailo conveying the fatal charm and blinding honesty of Billy himself. See my review in The Article.

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Between Worlds, English National Opera, ENO, Barbican, April 2015

This opera, ostensibly about the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, is really about what happens when people are suddenly caught between life and death, with only a tenuous connection to their loved ones in the world outside. This is reflected in Michael Levine’s set design for Deborah Warner’s production. The …

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Dialogues des Carmélites, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, May 2014

Premiered at the Netherlands Opera in 1997, Robert Carsen’s award winning production has done the rounds before making its London debut as the first Carmélites at the ROH since 1983. Aesthetically abstract, it uses clever lighting on an open stage, and the vast number of chorus and extras emphasise the mass psychology underpinning the reign …

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Thebans, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, May 2014

For his first opera, composer Julian Anderson demonstrates huge chutzpah in combining Sophocles’ three Theban plays (Oedipus the King/ Oedipus at Colonus/ Antigone) into a single evening of opera. The plays were not written in the chronological order of their events, and nor does Anderson take them in that order, ending with Colonus, written shortly …

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Magic Flute, English National Opera, London Coliseum, November 2013

A new production of Mozart’s Magic Flute should be judged largely by how well it illuminates this extraordinary story. But that aside, Simon McBurney’s production is full of theatrical innovations. On stage right there is a small booth for a production assistant to write on a chalk-board, and arrange books in a way that is …

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Death in Venice, English National Opera, London Coliseum, June 2013

Gustav von Aschenbach, the protagonist in Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella is enraptured by a Polish boy Tadzio, just as Mann himself was during his 1911 stay at the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Venice Lido. Britten’s opera fully brings to life Aschenbach’s suppressed passion, and the haunting Venetian soundscapes, complemented by Deborah Warner’s remarkable …

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Wagner Dream, Welsh National Opera, Cardiff, June 2013

This was the first staged production of Jonathan Harvey’s opera Wagner Dream, first performed by Netherlands Opera in Luxembourg in 2007, and in concert at the Barbican in January 2012. Harvey’s opera is set in Venice on the day of Wagner’s death in 1883, and within ten minutes the composer, very well played by actor …

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Eugene Onegin, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, November 2011

Altogether this is a wonderful new production by the ENO, and the visual effects were so good that the audience spontaneously applauded the ball scene as the curtain opened for Act III.

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La Bohème, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, October 2010

… Mimi herself was the star of the show, gloriously sung by Elizabeth Llewellyn, making her ENO debut.

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La Traviata, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, May 2010

Mr. Hvorostovsky sang gloriously … it’s worth going to this brief run of five performances just to hear him. Both Ms. Jaho and Mr. Pirgu sang strongly after a rather nervous start …

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