Tag Archives: Stéphanie d’Oustrac

Top ten operas 2022

Posted on December 26, 2022 by Mark Pullinger

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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Carthage carnage: Tcherniakov’s Trojans flops at the Bastille

Posted on January 26, 2019 by Mark Pullinger

Berlioz: Les Troyens ** Opéra de Paris, 25th January 2019 What if, after the Fall of Troy, Énée doesn’t end up in Carthage, courting Didon, but washes up in a residential home for war victims suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder instead? … Continue reading →

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Zinging Haydn and Mozart from Ádám Fischer and the OAE

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Mark Pullinger

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/ Ádám Fischer **** Royal Festival Hall, 27th February 2018 Two years ago, when I told Ádám Fischer that I owned his recorded cycle of the complete Haydn symphonies, he chuckled and apologised, explaining that he didn’t like … Continue reading →

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Carmen as therapy: Tcherniakov challenges clichés but is stumped in Aix

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Mark Pullinger

Bizet: Carmen ** Grand Théâtre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 4th July 2017 Love may well be a rebellious bird, but that’s as nothing to maverick director Dmitri Tcherniakov. In his beloved Russian repertoire he displays genius – his recent Snow Maiden in Paris fully … Continue reading →

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Boxed in: Pelly serves up a grey Béatrice et Bénédict at Glyndebourne

Posted on July 24, 2016 by Mark Pullinger

Berlioz: Béatrice et Bénédict *** Glyndebourne, 23rd July 2016 It’s a delicious irony that Shakespeare is celebrated at this most English of opera festivals by a Frenchman directing a French comedy. Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream follows in August, but first … Continue reading →

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