Articles by Jenny Camilleri

An uneven yet unforgettable performance, thanks to conductor Jaap van Zweden’s seductive colouring of the score and Jennifer Wilson’s refulgent Isolde.

Dutch National Opera have given themselves and their patrons a smashing 50th birthday present – a production of Der Rosenkavalier that is a winner on all fronts.

Jonathan Dove’s new opera about the foolhardy destruction of nature receives an open-air world première with fiery special effects against an evocative historical backdrop.

A mélange of documentary, Chinese opera and contemporary music does not really bind into a solid whole, but Sichuan opera star Shen Tiemei’s performance is complete musical theatre.

The child-woman Lulu is a reflective receptacle for desire in Dutch National Opera’s extraordinary filmic production.

Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde was the high point at an opera gala in support of young singers at the Concertgebouw.

An all-Dutch Verdi Requiem with soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek makes a heartfelt case for music as an antidote to war.

In a ravishing and affectingly sung production, Floris Visser re-imagines the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as the efforts of a grieving psyche trying to heal its devastating wounds.

In a thoroughly riveting recital at the Concertgebouw, soprano Anna Prohaska probes Ophelia’s psyche through songs from the nineteenth century onwards.

Andrea Marcon leads La Cetra Baroque Orchestra and a group of accomplished soloists in an elegant and sensuous performance of Vivaldi's pastoral opera at the Concertgebouw.

The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra gives a patrician performance of Verdi’s Macbeth and Scott Hendricks is riveting in Andrea Breth’s claustrophobic exploration of oppression and derangement.

Superlative vocal and instrumental soloists, led by Michael Schade as a vividly intense Evangelist, impress in Bach’s St John Passion at the Concertgebouw.

Lustrous-voiced soprano Omo Bello and pianist Clément Mao-Takacs delight their Amsterdam audience with a tasteful programme of Italian songs. 

A fine cast and orchestra revive Simon McBurney’s twilit, inventive Magic Flute at Dutch National Opera.

Talented young soloists and conductor Benjamin Levy's lithe way with Bizet's melodies make for a musically satisfying Pearl Fishers at the Royal Carré in Amsterdam.

Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker thrill a packed Concertgebouw with Lachenmann’s startling Tableau, for orchestra and a grand and terrifying Mahler Second.

Mariss Jansons’ reading of Strauss’ Der Bürger als Edelmann is devoid of parody, while his Mahler Fourth is a glimpse of heaven in shimmering watercolours.

At the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam a performance of Michelangelo Falvetti’s recently unearthed gem Il diluvio universale was a joyful labour of love.

On home ground, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra played sensationally in Daniele Gatti’s intensely theatrical and impossibly beautiful Mahler 3.

Lyrical pathos and battering choral climaxes were the strong suits at the Dutch première of Hans Werner Henze’s incendiary oratorio Das Floβ der Medusa.