Mainly Opera and Ballet
Love and betrayal — an indomitable, strong man undone by a woman — is the essence of the Biblical story, but the opera by Saint-Saëns gives Delilah a motive in which she acts out of religious zeal and patriotic fervour. This conflicts with the fact that she is bribed to betray Samson, but the wonderful …
Based on Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play Salomé, this opera uses the nexus of eroticism and death to dramatise proto-Christian ideas in the Holy Land. Its main protagonists are the anti-heroine Salome and John the Baptist whose head she demands on a platter. Conducting by Alexander Soddy fully brought out the drama, sexuality and passion of …
Christopher Alden’s previous production, dragged down by its undertow of sexual abuse, has been abandoned and English National Opera has put the fairy magic back into Britten’s opera by returning to the earlier Robert Carson staging, last seen here in 2004. The result brings joy to the heart as the blundering Puck of Miltos Yerolemou …
