Tag Archives: Lynne Hockney

Katya Kabanova, Grange Park Opera, June 2024

This wonderfully intense Janacek opera was given a superb staging with Natalya Romaniw very moving in the title role. Thus far this summer, it is the most atmospheric performance I have seen — see my review in The Article.

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Glyndebourne, July 2023

In earlier operas such as Peter Grimes and Turn of the Screw, Britten had already shown a striking musical ability to interleave scenes of innocent joy with others of dark and mysterious intensity, so he was ideally suited to turning Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream into an opera. It was first performed at Aldeburgh in 1960 …

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Glyndebourne, GFO, August 2016

This was a treat. Peter Hall’s production with its moving trees and bushes and gently swaying branches shows the forces of nature creating the magic that is so well exemplified in Benjamin Britten’s music. John Bury’s designs and Paul Pyant’s lighting foster an atmosphere where the desires of the lovers and the temerity of the …

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La Bohème, Grange Park Opera, GPO, June 2015

There seem to have been a plethora of Bohèmes recently. The one by English Touring Opera last autumn shows a performance can tug unbearably on the heart-strings accompanied by only the simplest of sets, and the final run of John Copley’s Covent Garden production shows that even with the most glorious sets and world’s top …

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Eugene Onegin, Grange Park Opera, June 2013

At the end, after Onegin has clung uselessly to Tatyana and she has pulled herself away and left the stage, we see Prince Gremin walk across the upper level holding a pistol. A fine dramatic effect, following many others in this beautifully honed production. The splitting of the set into an upper and lower level, …

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