Mainly Opera and Ballet
This new production by the Welsh National Opera portrays Grimes, brilliantly performed by Nicky Spence, as a bully. Brutal but with a hugely vulnerable side that is desperate for the love of the young widow Ellen Orford. She would take him in a heartbeat, but he insists on acquiring the respect of the local community …
Ethel Smyth’s third opera opened the Glyndebourne season, performed in its original French without cuts. Odd since it is by an English composer, and its first performance was in a cut down German translation that the composer refused to tolerate. She removed all the orchestral scores in Leipzig, and when Beecham gave the first British …
Standing outside in the grounds of Glyndebourne facing the ha-ha near the new statues of hunting dogs, one looks to the left and sees a green hill just like the one on stage; and in front of the stage hill is a tree made of pieces of wood. The stage tree lends an air of …
…this was a revelation, and I congratulate Glyndebourne for putting it on.
