by Sam Smith
There was a jubilant atmosphere at the Southbank Centre. Across the afternoon Opera Forge performed excerpts from Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Siegfried in the…
by Melanie Eskenazi
Not so much cabbages and kings, as cabbages and cats; once more, the ginger pussy is one of the stars of Richard Jones’ 2009 production...
by Melanie Eskenazi
Glyndebourne is cementing its reputation of late not only as the opera house which has put its money where its mouth is in terms of...
by Melanie Eskenazi
Ariadne auf Naxos is not exactly the most sensible of operas, but this production makes surprisingly good sense of what is often rendered silly, and...
by Sam Smith
John Fulljames’ new production of Rossini’s La donna del lago, an opera that has not been seen at Covent Garden for 28 years, illustrates how...
by Christian Hoskins
This superb concert by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen paired two contrasted Shostakovich works from the 1930s, the European premiere of the recently unearthed...
by Sam Smith
Although the obvious selling points of this concert were the appearance of soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci and the performance of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, the evening...
by Melanie Eskenazi
Verdi’s great drama of love and loss, freedom and power, can seldom have given sharper focus to the themes of Schiller’s original, than in this...
by Sam Smith
Berlioz’ La damnation de Faust was written not as an opera but as a légende dramatique, almost an anti-oratorio of sorts. This does not mean...
by John-Pierre Joyce
This latest concert in the Southbank’s The Rest is Noise season celebrating cultural landmarks of the twentieth century was a perfect case study for music...
by Melanie Eskenazi
The untimely death of the dramatic soprano Elizabeth Connell in 2012 deprived the operatic world of one of its most vibrant and individual voices and...
by Sam Smith
Over the Barbican’s 2012/13 season, the BBCSO has performed both of Ravel’s completed operas. On each occasion it ensured that it put on more than...
by Sam Smith
Although Handel had already written Oratorios in Italy, and the precise origins of Esther HWV50a remain unclear, the piece still enjoys the label of the first...
by Melanie Eskenazi
“…after singing Verdi, it is much easier to sing Wagner, as the composer intended, with Italian legato.” In that one phrase, Jonas Kaufmann sums up...
by Sam Smith
Two things counted against this concert performance of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. The first was that, even though much can be conveyed through...
by Sam Smith
The Royal Opera’s Rigoletto and Salome may have seen David McVicar labelled as the director of raunch and gore, but this overlooks the fact that...
by John-Pierre Joyce
The London Symphony Orchestra’s celebration of contemporary music, LSO Futures, reached a climax with a performance of seminal twentieth century works, and a world premiere....
