Tag Archives: Toby Spence
Posted on 1 March 2024
Wagner’s Flying Dutchman is the first opera in his canon of ten mature works. He claims it was based on a novella by Heinrich Heine, but there is more to the story than that, and this excellent production was made musically gripping under the baton of Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási, with singers on top form. See …
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Posted on 25 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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Posted on 2 February 2018
Non-violence — is there a positive word for it? In creating a proactive term for non-violence in action Gandhi invented satyagraha from two Sanskrit roots, satya meaning truth, and agraha meaning holding on to. It is the underlying theme for the three acts of this opera, representing past, present and future, but standing outside time …
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Posted on 21 June 2013
Unlike predecessors such as Peter Grimes (1945) and Billy Budd (1951), Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana may never be part of the standard repertoire, but the ROH has now given us a fine new perspective on this opera. Exactly sixty years after its first performances to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation, this newly imaginative, clever and colourful production …
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Posted on 11 November 2012
This remarkable opera by Thomas Adès, to a libretto by Meredith Oakes, dares turn Shakespeare’s play into an opera, and succeeds. First performed in 2004 at Covent Garden in an intriguing production by Tom Cairns, it was originally co-produced with the Copenhagen Opera House and the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg. This production at …
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Posted on 10 August 2012
“A gentle, more elegant age” was how the BBC’s Katie Derham referred to the world of Ivor Novello in her brief introduction, quoting We’ll Gather Lilacs in connection with his funeral in 1951. After that we were placed in the very capable hands of Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra for a glorious late night concert. They …
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Posted on 20 December 2011
This was Antonio Pappano’s first Meistersinger for the Royal Opera, and from the start of the overture to the final chords of Act III, more than five hours later, his peerless conducting drove Wagner’s comedy forward with huge effect. The chorus too was excellent, from the first four-part harmony in the church to their final embrace of Sachs …
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Posted on 13 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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Posted on 12 August 2011
The clarity of this production, and this performance, was exceptional. From the first words of the Prologue to the last words of the drama when the Governess asks the limp body of Miles, “What have we done between us?”, the whole story was laid bare. The scene with the governess travelling by train to the big …
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Posted on 19 September 2010
Overall some lovely singing from Toby Spence and Melody Moore, but I left feeling underwhelmed.
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