Opera Reviews
The Snowmaiden, English Touring Opera review - a rich harvest with modest meansMonday, 30 September 2024
Just as the first autumn chills began to grip, English Touring Opera rolled into Hackney Empire with a reminder that the sun – “god of love and life” – will eventually return. But at what price of suffering and sacrifice? Read more... |
Suor Angelica, English National Opera review - isolated one-acter lacks emotional inscapingSaturday, 28 September 2024
Puccini elevated the operatic tearjerker to tragic status in three masterpieces: La bohème, Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica, rivalling the other two in intensity despite its brevity. Its special atmosphere works best as the central part of a trilogy (Il Trittico) between a dark melodrama and a pacy comedy. The jury’s still out on whether it works on its own, so disappointingly undernourished is Annilese Miskimmon’s production. Read more... |
The Magic Flute, Opera North review - a fresh vision of Mozart’s masterpieceSaturday, 28 September 2024
In an autumn season of three revivals, Opera North begin by inviting James Brining, artistic director of Leeds Playhouse, to oversee his own production from five years ago of Mozart and Emanual Schikaneder’s extraordinary musical play. It’s the mainstay of the season, returning in 2025 (with some cast changes) as well as dominating the next two months. Read more... |
Eugene Onegin, Royal Opera review - the heart left coldWednesday, 25 September 2024
Emotional truth is elusive in Tchaikovsky’s “lyrical scenes” after Pushkin’s verse-novel. Overstress every feeling, as conductor Henrik Nánási did last night, and you leave some of us in the audience feeling manipulated. Play it cool, which is what we mostly get in Ted Huffman’s new production, and the heart is similarly untouched. Read more... |
Rigoletto, Welsh National Opera review - back to what they do bestMonday, 23 September 2024
We were of course lucky to get this new WNO Rigoletto at all. If it weren’t for the fact that, in the end, the company’s wonderful chorus and orchestra couldn’t wait to get back to doing what they do best, and accepted a modest glow of light at the end of the tunnel that would barely have registered on the light meters of most union negotiations, the company could well have been dark for many months, perhaps for good. Read more... |
Prom 68, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Garsington Opera review - eerie beauty sometimes faintly glitteringWednesday, 11 September 2024
Some operas shine in the vasts of the Albert Hall, others seem to creep back into their beautiful shells. Glyndebourne’s Carmen blazed, though Bizet never intended his opera for a big theatre, while Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, despite an equally fine cast from what’s now an equally fine company, Garsington Opera, left us with some black holes in the iridescent spider-web. Read more... |
La traviata, Royal Opera review - a charismatic soprano in a serviceable revivalTuesday, 10 September 2024
Later this autumn Richard Eyre’s La Traviata celebrates its 30th birthday. Not bad going for the director’s first ever foray into opera – a genre he admitted holding an “unreasonable prejudice against”. Read more... |
Prom 52, Carmen, Glyndebourne Festival review - fine-tuning a masterpieceFriday, 30 August 2024
If you ever doubted that Bizet’s Carmen, 150 years young next year, is one of the greatest operas of all time, this performance would have changed your mind. Among the four principals only Rihab Chaieb’s utterly convincing, consistent protagonist was the same as on first night 22 performances ago, and as ringleader we had the vivacious conductor of the second run, Anja Bihlmaier. Read more... |
Verdi's Requiem / Capriccio, Edinburgh International Festival 2024 review - words, music, judgementTuesday, 27 August 2024
The Philharmonia’s residency was the centrepiece of the Edinburgh International Festival’s final weekend, and it’s right that the orchestra should be the focus because they were consistently the finest thing about both their Verdi Requiem and their concert performance of Richard Strauss’ last opera Capriccio. Read more... |
The Fabulist, Charing Cross Theatre review - fine singing cannot rescue an incoherent productionWednesday, 21 August 2024
On opening night, there’s always a little tension in the air. Tech rehearsals and previews can only go so far – this is the moment when an audience, some wielding pens like scalpels, sit in judgement. Having attended thousands on the critics’ side of the fourth wall, I can tell you that there’s plenty of crackling expectation and a touch of fear in the stalls, too. None more so than when the show is billed as a new musical. Read more... |
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