Mainly Opera and Ballet
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.
What a wonderful performance to open the 2025/26 season at the Royal Opera. This new production of Tosca by the Royal Opera’s artistic director Oliver Mears is updated to modern times, and superbly conducted by music director Jakub Hruša. It elicited huge applause from the audience — see my review in The Article.
Like the mighty Volga, the music of Janáček sweeps all before it in this short opera based on a Russian play. The production contains incomprehensible allusions such as a red angel, but it matters little. The musical performance was outstanding — see my review in The Article.
This was my first encounter with the Hamlet of French composer Ambroise Thomas, and very moving it was. The Festival also performed a brief seventeenth opera, Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux enfers, plus four short operas, two of which were interesting — see my review in The Article.
