Tag Archives: David Bates

Iphigenia en Tauride, English National Opera, Nov 2026

At last the ENO have got something right this season, after two flops. This was arguably Gluck’s finest opera, setting the stage for Wagner more than half a century later. No longer was opera to be seen as recitatives with continuo accompaniment linked by orchestral passages, but as music drama carried forward together by singers …

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The Coronation of Poppea, Grange Festival, June 2024

Poppea was the mistress, later wife, of the Roman emperor Nero, and this final opera by Monteverdi deals with an entirely human drama. First performed in 1643 it helped move opera away from purely Classical subjects about gods and heroes — see my review in The Article.

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