Category Archives: Opera

ENO’s new Magic Flute mixes high-tech with simple stagecraft

Mozart: The Magic Flute **** English National Opera, 7th November 2013 For all the risk-taking in the operatic world, productions which are guaranteed bums-on-seats bankers are like Nibelung gold. To scrap not one but two such productions is a brave … Continue reading

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Netrebko’s Tatyana is worth the wait!

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin **** Metropolitan Opera, 5th October 2013 I’ve waited thirteen impatient years for this. Covent Garden, July 2000: the Mariinsky Opera (or the Kirov Opera as it was then titled) rolled into town for a Russian season of … Continue reading

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HMS Indomitable docks at Glyndebourne once more

Britten: Billy Budd ***** Glyndebourne, 17th August 2013 After Friday evening’s Prom performance of The Midsummer Marriage, I followed hot on the heels of conductor Andrew Davis to the Sussex Downs, where the former Glyndebourne Music Director is at the … Continue reading

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Turgid tempi hamper Barenboim’s Rheingold

Prom 14: Das Rheingold *** Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall, 22nd July 2013 ‘A sultry haze hangs in the air,’ remarks Donner towards the finale of Das Rheingold. He wasn’t wrong. In a Royal Albert Hall sweltering like Nibelheim’s furnaces, … Continue reading

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Frugal simplicity: minimalistic but powerful Carmélites at Grange Park

Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites **** Grange Park Opera, 6th July 2013 The last time I was at Tre Scalini, in Rome’s Piazza Navona, it was a brief visit, merely to scoff down some Tartufo and scribble a postcard or two. Francis … Continue reading

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