Tag Archives: Elina Garanca

Top ten operas 2022

This was the year that opera houses got back to something approaching “normality” post-pandemic. It’s easy to forget that at the start of 2022, Covid restrictions were still very much in place: visiting Vienna in January, one needed proof of … Continue reading

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A warm Viennese embrace as Wagner and Bruckner meet in Salzburg

Christian Thielemann/ Vienna Philharmonic Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival, 26th August 2020 Wagner and Bruckner are a classic concert pairing. One was a huge devotee of the other – Bruckner even studded the first version of his Third Symphony (dedicated to … Continue reading

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Softly awakes my cold, cold heart: a tepid Samson et Dalila in Vienna

Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila *** Wiener Staatsoper, 12th May 2018 Strip Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila of its biblical setting and what have you got left? An individual who succumbs to temptation and forfeits his life to kill hundreds of his religious enemies. … Continue reading

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Gold-plated Don Carlos cast compensates for Warlikowski’s frosty Paris staging

Verdi: Don Carlos *** Opéra Bastille, 28th October 2017 Stéphane Lissner, director of the Opéra de Paris, had one of his greatest successes as general manager at the Théâtre du Châtelet with Luc Bondy’s staging of the original French version of … Continue reading

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Plums and turkeys: a musical voyage around 2016

Most people I know cannot wait to see the back of 2016. But in the year in which Brexit, Trump and the Grim Reaper were the big winners, I admit to having had a terrific twelve months. A whirl of … Continue reading

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