A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Opera North, Manchester
Powder Her Face
Royal Opera, Linbury
At certain times all conditions seem to conspire to favour some opera composers, and to make others seem virtually impossible to produce satisfying accounts of. At present everything is going Britten’s way; every time I see a production of almost any opera by him my opinion both of it and of him rises; while I can hardly remember when I was last really satisfied by a performance of a work by Wagner or Verdi. A lot of that is due, no doubt, to the comparatively undemanding nature of Britten’s vocal writing, and to the consequent lack of need for stars. Despite the popularity of some of his major operas, few famous singers have chosen to perform in any of them, Jon Vickers being the only artist with ‘super-stellar’ status who has regularly sung in Peter Grimes.
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