Mainly Opera and Ballet
This was a musical treat under the baton of Tomáš Hanus, who is sadly leaving the WNO after ten years. He fully brought out the energy and inspiration that Wagner put into this work — the first of his extraordinary music dramas — which changed the face of opera. See my review in The Article.
This was a great disappointment. Ambiguity is the essence of this Benjamin Britten opera. Are the ghosts real or are they figments of the young governess’s imagination? A production may point one way or the other, but this one used clever lighting to simply make everything very spooky. It missed the ambiguity completely — see …
This was the third instalment of Barrie Kosky’s new Ring for The Royal Opera. It’s an opera that can drag a bit in Act I, but under the baton of Antonio Pappano and the stage direction of Barrie Kosky there was never a dull moment. Added to this, Andreas Schager was superb in the title …
This opera emerged from an earlier Singspiel, and was created by Kurt Weill and Bertoldt Brecht, who wrote the unsettling libretto exposing a dark side to capitalism, where anything goes as long as you can pay. It was produced in 1930 before Hitler came to power, an event that compelled Weill and his wife the …
This second revival of the Royal Opera’s production from 2016 was a triumph for Bryn Terfel who gave a beautifully nuanced performance in the title role. The opera features a densely packed sequence of events in a formative period of modern Russia at what in England would be the Tudor period. See my review in …
This revival of Cal McCrystal’s 2021 production clearly entertained the audience who clapped along with the music towards the end. The conductor, along with a cast held together well by Captain Corcoran, carried off a strong performance despite over-acting in the role of Dick Deadeye — see my review in The Article.
This wonderful opera by Janáček, based on a play by the great Czech writer Karel Čapek, involves a complex legal case that has been running for over a hundred years. Into this confusion steps Elena Makropulos, who exhibits unusual knowledge of the case. Born in the late sixteenth century she wants to find the secret …
A man on death row in a Louisiana State penitentiary strikes up a written correspondence with a nun, and asks her to come and see him. She does, but not to plead his innocence, rather to plead with him to admit his crimes and seek solace in his dying hours. This superb opera offers anger, …
Once again the English National Opera defy the Arts Council which has stripped them of funding. This semi-staged version of Britten’s Albert Herring was a musical triumph under the baton of Daniel Cohen, and after another performance in London it moves to Salford, which is partly what the Arts Council wants. Great musicality — see …
This engaging and eclectic new production by Julia Burbach gave us Rossini’s Cenerentola in a form where the pompous father seemed relatively normal. He hides huge insecurity behind a pretentious exterior, but Burbach managed to avoid making him a complete buffoon — see my review in The Article.
