Reviews Index
by Barry Creasy
When the Eric Whitacre show rolls into town, full houses are guaranteed, and Wednesday night was no exception. Some critics dislike Whitacre’s music for being…
Music history is full of moments where classical and non-classical worlds have overlapped and intersected. Classical music influencing non-classical might be more common, but recent...
There was a time when Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt was almost as popular as Messiah, but these days, it’s rare to come across a...
English National Opera’s production of Britten’s first opera Paul Bunyan, directed by Jamie Manton, started life at Wilton’s Music Hall in 2018 and now comes...
Concerts devoted to all-Russian programmes seem to be on trend at the moment in the capital. Hot on the heels of Vladimir Ashkenazy’s thrilling evening...
It is safe to say that Man of La Mancha is better known in America than Britain. The 1965 musical, with book by Dale Wasserman,...
“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman” Virginia Woolf’s above remark was illustrated well in ‘Breaking the Habit’, Stile Antico’s presentation of vocal works...
Elgar’s Violin Concerto, a beast of a work, is one of the longest in the standard repertoire. Clocking in at around 50 minutes, it requires...
Opera Settecento, directed by Leo Duarte, has quite a tradition of performing pasticcios at the London Handel Festival, having presented Elpidia (1725) in 2016 and...
We forget that, although the establishment of his patron – George, Elector of Hanover – as the British monarch was a considerable inducement for Handel...
As part of the Wigmore’s ongoing Schumann Song Series, this evening’s joyous recital brought together one of the country’s most well-loved singers, Dame Sarah Connolly,...
‘I am an old man…‘ no you’re not, Edward Fairfax Vere, you’re in your forties and you still look about 23 – the wispy chap...
The Linbury Theatre is really making its mark this year, and these performances by the stunning Isango Ensemble are not only the ideal works to...
If ever there were a case for a Cambridge college having a mixed-gender choir, Clare College’s singers made it bewitchingly in their choral miscellany of...
The dripping blood our only drink / the bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we like to think / That we are...
German poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes wrote Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus, more commonly known today as the Brockes-Passion, in 1712,...
Is it possible to out-Bostridge Ian Bostridge? Apparently, yes, since this performance of Die schöne Müllerin was even more anguished, angry and ‘acted’ than many...
‘Handel Remixed’, a collaboration between Festival Voices (and original instruments) under Gregory Batsleer, and DJ/electronic music producer Nico Bentley and Pencil Collective, promised to be...
The London Handel Festival’s concert ‘Handel vs Porpora’ presented instrumental items and a selection of arias from operas by the two rival London-based 18th-century composers...
Acis and Galatea of 1718 has been described as a serenata, masque, pastoral, pastoral opera or (in a letter that Handel wrote while he...
The London Mozart Players and Crouch End Festival Chorus gave a generally excellent account, on Wednesday evening, of Parry’s oratorio Judith – the piece’s first...
