Category Archives: Reviews

Billy Budd English National Opera 28th June 2012 Conductor Edward Gardner Director David Alden Designer Paul Steinberg Costume Designer Constance Hoffman Lighting Designer Adam Silverman Movement Director Maxine Braham Cast Billy Budd Benedict Nelson Captain Vere Kim Begley Claggart Matthew … Continue reading →

Les Troyens   Pappano Antonacci Capitanucci Hymel Westbroek Sherratt Hipp Senator Lloyd Stephen Kim Holland Kim Jakobski Grice Park Clarke White Lyon Royal Opera Chorus Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Virgil\’s Epic of Troy & Carthage opens: “arma virumque cano … Continue reading →

Falstaff Music, G. Verdi:  Libretto, A Boito A new production at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Dedicated to the Memory of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Conductor Daniele Gatti Sir John Falstaff Ambrogio Maestri Alice Ford Ana Martínez Ford Dalibor Jenis Meg Page … Continue reading →

London Symphnoy Orchestra and Ladies of the Chorus. Debussy: Three Nocturnes Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No I  soloist  Christian Tetzlaff Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy (Symphony No 4) Audiences differ from nmusical occasion to mucsical occasion. It’s a commonplace observation but as … Continue reading →

Edward Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius Barbican Hall14th September 2012 Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Edward Gardner Soloists: Sarah Connolly (Angel) Robert Murray (Gerontius) James Rutherford (Priest/Angel of the Agony) Angel\’s farewell…. In the link above Janet Baker sings the Angel’s Farewell –  and you … Continue reading →

Offenbach: Tales of Hoffman English National Opera Tales of Hoffman is neither quite comic opera nor quite black comedy set to music. It takes itself too seriously to be the former; it lacks suggestive darkness of the latter…Tales of Hoffman … Continue reading →

Joyce Didonato and the New York Philharmonic Hector Berlioz song cycle sits easily in the heart of the Romantic Classical and has mastered all its artistic language. But Berlioz gives us something much greater…the melancholy of loss… the bitter-sweet of … Continue reading →

Der Rosenkavalier English National Opera Comedy for music in three acts by Hugo Hofmannstahl and Richard Strauss. Marschallin, Amanda Roocroft; Octavian, Sarah Connolly; Baron Ochs, John Tomlinson; Herr von Faninal, Andrew Shore; Sophie von Faninal,  Sophie  Bevan; Annina,  Madeleine Shaw;  … Continue reading →

Oliver Goldsmith:   She Stoops to Conquer My goodness, it takes me back…. I first came across Goldsmith in the second form of Presentation College, Reading. In those days part and parcel of English Literature was learning some poetry by … Continue reading →

Dvorák: The Jacobin. An Opera in three Acts, BBC Symphony Orchestra., BBC Singers, Trinty Boys Choir and Old Palace Chamber Choir…… Soloists: Svatopl Sem – Bohus; Dana Burseova – Julie; Jozef Benci – Filip; Jaroslav Brzina – Brenda; Lucie Fiser … Continue reading →