Tag Archives: Pique Dame

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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Jansons and the Vienna Phil trump Neuenfels’ tame Pique Dame in Salzburg

Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame *** Salzburg Festival, 10th August 2018 Tomsky taunts the obsessive gambler in Hermann with his Ballad of the Three Cards. The Countess recounts singing for the king in Versailles. But it is arguably the orchestra itself which … 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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Caged bird: Tchaikovsky stars in Herheim’s remarkable Pique Dame at Dutch National Opera

Tchaikovsky: The Queen of Spades ***** Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam, 9th June 2016 “Wept terribly when Hermann gave up the ghost,” wrote Tchaikovsky in his diary. What was it that drove the composer to identify so closely with such an … Continue reading

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