Mainly Opera and Ballet
In her delightfully sung aria una voce poco fa the soprano Rosina shows herself attracted to the voice of a secret admirer. He later reveals himself as Count Almaviva in this wonderful Rossini comic opera. It is based on a plot by Pierre Beaumarchais, following the Italian tradition of Commedia dell’arte, and the ENO did …
Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes portrays its eponymous character as neither hero nor villain. Like everyone else in George Crabbe’s story his life is controlled by the sea, their destinies forged and circumscribed by powerful forces, just as Britten’s was in the Second World War when he left Britain for America where this work was …
This new staging of Rheingold is part of a new production of Wagner’s Ring being produced in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Director Richard Jones has given us a clear set of allusions in a modern setting, rather than a simplistic interpretation overlaid with subtleties that no audience member can fathom without reading …
With the recent shenanigans of Russia’s not-so-secret security services, this opera gives form to the history that partly underpins the current regime’s paranoia. Tolstoy’s vast War and Peace, embracing the defeat of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion, expresses the soul of Russia, and Prokofiev’s monumental opera acquired new impetus from the German invasion of 1941. Stalin was keen …
Hugely powerful and strangely life affirming. Janáček’s opera on Dostoyevsky’s novel about convicts in a Siberian prison camp might seem unpromising material, but the composer was a master at turning stories into dramatic masterpieces and this — his final opera — is extraordinary. Composed on hand written staves that did not always extend to a …
This great opera portrays late seventeenth century events in Russia before Peter the Great came to power. Musorgsky, who wrote his own libretto, invents some love interest, notably in the character of Marfa, though the true historical background and exigencies of getting operas to stage are well described in the excellent programme essays, which also …
