Opera Reviews
Ariodante, Royal Opera online review – stylish, but confinedMonday, 23 November 2020
“After black and gloomy night, the sun shines all the brighter,” sings hero Ariodante after a life-threatening bout of jealousy nearly scuppers a royal wedding. There’s a snag in Handel’s dramaturgy: all that sunshine in preparation for the nuptials in Act One isn’t really earned. Read more... |
Bluebeard's Castle, LSO, Rattle, LSO St Luke's online review - slow-burning magnificenceWednesday, 04 November 2020
Poulenc’s La voix humaine comes close, but Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle has to be the perfect lockdown opera, this heady tale of two mismatched souls stuck in a confined space (admittedly an enormous one) alarmingly pertinent. Read more... |
The Magic Flute, Glyndebourne review - deeply moving light in darknessMonday, 02 November 2020
How does Mozart do it? His music can provoke deep emotions even in the unlikeliest operatic situations, if well done, and present circumstances stirred them up all the more on Sunday afternoon. Read more... |
Meet the Young Artists Week recital, Linbury Theatre – four big personalitiesThursday, 29 October 2020
Throughout this most difficult of years, the Royal Opera has done the right thing for the singers on its Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. They were fortunate to finish the run of Handel’s Susanna before the Linbury Theatre closed down for over seven months (yesterday saw its reopening to a necessarily small audience). Read more... |
4/4, Royal Opera review – desire, loss and lunacy in four surprising actsMonday, 19 October 2020
Think you’ve seen enough of monologues and duets over the past few months? Watch this and reel. Read more... |
Fidelio, Garsington Opera review - heart of darkness, light-filled liberationSaturday, 19 September 2020
It may be only six and a half months since many of us saw a production of Beethoven’s Fidelio in the opera house, but that was another world, and this post-lockdown admittance to Garsington Opera’s spacious, award-winning pavilion with its impressive acoustic was always going to be something extraordinary. Read more... |
La bohème, Scottish Opera – pandemic PucciniMonday, 07 September 2020
Picture the scene. A vast steel gazebo covers a nondescript parking lot next to an industrial unit in Glasgow. With a clear plastic covering, it is the most rudimentary of shelters, sides open to admit the roar of the M8 and the wailing of sirens, carried on a keen autumnal breeze. Read more... |
The Royal Opera: Live in Concert review - Italianate fizz with a patch of flatnessSunday, 06 September 2020
What could be better than Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro to celebrate the Royal Opera’s next step on the path out of lockdown? Ideally, the rest of the opera, especially remembering Antonio Pappano’s lively interaction with his singers playing the continuo role. Read more... |
Sāvitri, Lauderdale House review - death and life in a Highgate gardenMonday, 24 August 2020
In seach of Orpheus, and following a route from the Hades of (thankfully) masked beings on the underground to Archway, then up to a windy, grassy plateau just below Highgate village, this wandering critic encountered another myth about the power of life over death. Read more... |
The Encore, Opera Holland Park review - stylish return for a squad of old friendsMonday, 10 August 2020
As Dvořák’s "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka rose to its impassioned climax, Natalya Romaniw had to battle a helicopter thumping overhead. The helicopter lost (well, of course it did). Read more... |
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