Mark has been Bachtrack’s English editor since 2014. He is an experienced critic, writing over 500 reviews for the site, as well as contributing to Gramophone and Opera magazines. He is a member of the Music and Dance Sections of The Critics’ Circle. He also writes programme notes and is an occasional blogger at Beckmesser's Quill. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie.
Conformist or closet dissident? Dmitri Shostakovich had to adapt, chameleon-like, to the changing political climate in the Soviet Union, toeing the party line where necessary, but planting his music with coded messages.
The Italian maestro, who recently stepped down as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director, talks about learning from orchestras, future plans – and his frustrations with the world of opera.
Martin Kušej gives Mozart and Da Ponte's commedia per musica a sinister mafia setting, which is low on laughs but outstandingly performed, led by Lea Desandre's charismatic Cherubino.
Balanchine's triptych proves the perfect vehicle for The Australian Ballet to display its dazzling wares on its first post-pandemic international tour.
Stepping in for Daniil Trifonov, the Ukrainian-born Israeli parries and thrusts in Korngold's Violin Concerto, the highlight of Gustavo Gimeno's Proms debut.
His symphonies are now mainstays of orchestra seasons, but during his lifetime Gustav Mahler was more famous as a rigorous conductor, his music misunderstood and scorned.
A strong revival cast, conducted by Dalia Stasevska, demonstrate why Sir Peter Hall's 1981 vintage staging of Britten’s A Midsummer Night's Dream is such a classic.
The star tenor is clearly under the weather, but the young house-favourite mezzo shines in an impressive role debut in a revival of Benoît Jacquot's cinematic staging.
The Belgrade Philharmonic was one of Zubin Mehta’s first professional conducting engagements as his career was launched in 1958. A welcome guest, he returns to Serbia this summer to take the orchestra on a mini-tour of the Balkans.
