Götterdämmerung Bridgewater Hall, Manchester Don Carlos Opera North Manchester has a long and exalted history of service to Wagner, with Hans Richter, first conductor of the Ring, the chief conductor of the Hallé from 1899-1911, and Barbirolli a great Wagnerian, though there are lamentably few records of him in this repertoire. Mark Elder has for
Lohengrin Royal Opera House Nietzsche said of the prelude to Act I of Lohengrin that it was the first piece of hypnosis by music, and listening to the Royal Opera orchestra’s performance of it under Semyon Bychkov tended to confirm his claim, at any rate until the climax, where Bychkov pulled out a few stops
After Dido Young Vic Il trovatore Royal Opera House For the third collaboration between ENO and the Young Vic Katie Mitchell and her team ‘direct a new work using multi-media techniques to create a synergy of music, theatre and film, inspired by, and incorporating, the full score of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas’. Fortunately, the performance
Matthaüs-Passion Barbican ‘God save us…it’s just as if one were at an opera!’ a woman is quoted as saying at a performance of Bach’s Matthaüs-Passion in the 18th century. If she meant that it is hard to imagine a more intensely dramatic experience — it is other kinds of experience, too, of course — then
I Capuleti e i Montecchi; Dido and Aeneas; Acis and Galatea Royal Opera House There has been a three-week gap between the opening and closing sets of performances of the latest revival of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Royal Opera. Smitten by migraine on the first night, I had to leave in
Die Feen Châtelet, Paris Ernest Bloch’s Macbeth Bloomsbury Theatre Wagner wrote his first opera Die Feen (The Fairies) when he was 19 and 20. It was never staged or performed at all in his lifetime, and first performed in Munich in 1888, Richard Strauss having conducted the rehearsals. It was a big success, but has
Verdi’s Requiem Royal Opera House Carmen Sadler’s Wells Every time there’s a performance of Verdi’s Requiem the issue of whether it is a liturgical or theatrical work gets solemnly discussed, as if it couldn’t be both. If you take the Creator to be the figure described or invoked in the Bible, then He clearly has
La fedeltà premiata Royal Academy of Music Jenùfa English National Opera Everyone agrees that Haydn’s operas are a disappointment, given what is now widely regarded as his supreme musical stature, but it’s hard to say just why. In the case of La fedeltà premiata (Fidelity rewarded), which the Royal Academy of Music staged brilliantly —
I Capuleti e i Montecchi Royal Opera Education Double Bill Glyndebourne Of all the painfully premature deaths of composers, there can’t be any doubt that Schubert’s is the least endurable. Shatteringly great as his finest works are, one can envisage him striking out on new paths and taking his place beside his adored Beethoven. Mozart
Doctor Atomic English National Opera Der fliegende Holländer Royal Opera House John Adams’s latest opera Doctor Atomic, in a production shared with the New York Met, had its UK première at the English National Opera, and was greeted with the kind of cheers that you don’t often encounter in opera houses. It bored me in
Fidelio Cadogan Hall Vita Nuova Royal Festival Hall Birtwistle and Benjamin Linbury Studio Fidelio is an opera which, in my recent experience, almost always overwhelms me in a concert performance and almost always leaves me embarrassed or indignant when staged. Embarrassed, because the transvestite necessities of the heroine would almost never convince anyone, as Cherubino
Handel Wigmore Hall Die tote Stadt Royal Opera House The Wigmore Hall last Saturday afternoon and evening was a scene of sheer delight, with Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo being performed before tea, and Acis and Galatea in the evening. It was all masterminded by Paul McCreesh, with his Gabrieli Consort and Players, and a
La Bohème English National Opera The Demon Barbican Of all the most popular operas of Puccini, La Bohème is the one that has attracted least critical fire, and that, even during the long period when highbrows were required to despise him, was exempted from the general interdict. Even though the heroine dies a harrowing death,
Die tote Stadt Royal Opera House The Queen of Spades Barbican At last, after 88 years, Erich Korngold’s almost impressive opera Die tote Stadt has reached the UK in a handsome production, and in every respect the Royal Opera does it proud. If it isn’t quite a major work that’s because it vertiginously occupies a
The Beggar’s Opera Linbury Studio The Magic Flute Coliseum Is there any good reason for reviving The Beggar’s Opera now? None of the mercifully few productions I have seen has given any reason for answering yes (I don’t count The Threepenny Opera). The new production at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Studio emphatically doesn’t. Originally to
Skin Deep Opera North Verdi’s Requiem Barbican It takes a brave person, or more likely couple, to attempt an operetta which effectively satirises contemporary fads, and the more obvious the target the more difficult to pull off the satire with the requisite degree of scathingness. David Sawer and Armando Iannucci have taken cosmetic surgery, and
Cecilia Bartoli Barbican Turandot Royal Opera House For this year’s appearance at the Barbican, Cecilia Bartoli, ever exploratory in her repertoire, chose an evening of canzone, songs by composers and a few by singers of the bel canto repertoire. She was accompanied by the hyper-reticent Sergio Ciomei at the piano. Admittedly, the accompaniments to these
Tristan und Isolde Royal Festival Hall Hänsel und Gretel second cast Royal Opera House There have been few treats for lovers of Wagner in London in the past few years, but handsome amends were made in a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, with Vladimir Jurowski conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra and adequate soloists in
Hänsel und Gretel Royal Opera House Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen Ardente Opera The Royal Opera’s new production of Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, has two completely different casts and two conductors. For that matter, it has two producers, too, but they are both involved in the same production: Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser, with their usual
Riders to the Sea Coliseum Ascanio in Alba King’s Place Vaughan Williams’s short opera Riders to the Sea was to have been conducted by Richard Hickox, but in the sad event it was played as a tribute to him, and conducted by Edward Gardner. It had a kind of appropriateness, but my own abiding memory