Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | John Fulljames

John Fulljames directs a new production of Poul Ruders' uncompromising operatic take on Margaret Atwood’s celebrated novel. 

 This was opera which found expression using modern technology in a way that did not offend, intimidate or distract the audience, but rather enhanced the experience.

John Adams’ opera about Richard Nixon’s historic meeting with Mao Tse-Tung is performed with all round excellence, with a real find on the podium in the shape of Olivia Lee-Gunderman.

L'ouvrage lyrique méconnu de Kurt Weill bénéficie d'une distribution américaine inspirée, d'une mise en scène agréablement surprenante et d'un excellent Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo.

Juan Diego Flórez perhaps is the only one currently able to revive the virtuosity of the role created in 1762

Weill's neglected "American Opera" opens in Madrid with a refurbished production by John Fulljames and a strong cast led by Patricia Racette.

A series of ill-advised staging choices leads to a disappointingly drab performance of Monteverdi's Homeric epic.

Opera North's new production of The Snow Maiden is the first professional staging in the UK for over 60 years, although the magic is intermittent

Tabachnik et Debray signent une œuvre poétique à l'Opéra de Lyon. Puissamment évocateur, Benjamin, Dernière Nuit, nous donne à penser la tension entre mystique et profane qui nous possède tous.

Philip Pullman's exotic adventure about a girl determined to follow her father's footsteps gets a gently magical outing with Sri-Lankan inspired shadow puppetry and a strong cast. 

Juan Diego Flórez turns in a tour de force in the title role of a consistently attractive and inventive performance of Gluck's ballet-laden Orphée et Eurydice.

Weddings bring out the cynic in me. They also bring out the cynic in Don Alfonso and it’s at a wedding breakfast that John Fulljames sets his production of Così fan tutte. 

From its stunningly filmic opening to its faux-Golgotha finale, the Royal Opera House’s new production of Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny demands our attention. 

In his programme note, director John Fulljames remarked that “any opera has many layers of authorship”, and that is truer of American Lulu than most.Alban Berg compiled the original libretto for Lulu (1929–34) from two plays by Frank Wedekind: Erdgreist (“Earth Spirit”, 1895) and Die Büsche der Pandora (“Pandora’s Box”, 1904). At the time of Berg”s death in 1935 the third act remained incomplete.

This week the Linbury Studio Theatre attracted an audience of the more minute variety with its dazzling production of The Firework-Maker’s Daughter. Based on Philip Pullman’s novel, the two-act opera transported its listeners into the realms of the Far East with papery costumes, Indonesian shadow puppetry and hand-crafted pyrotechnics.

This new production of Mozart’s final, and often overlooked, opera from John Fulljames and Opera North is neither a period piece nor a straightforward translation into our own time. Instead, it inhabits it own dark and austere world created by set designer Conor Murphy and Finn Ross, whose stylish abstract projections incorporate elements of government buildings both ancient and modern.

Babur in London is the latest production from pioneering opera company The Opera Group, and it provided a thought-provoking evening. A collaborative venture between British-born composer Edward Rushton and New Delhi-based librettist Jeet Thayil, the new work has already toured Switzerland, and arrived in London following dates in Basingstoke, Oxford, Leeds and Birmingham.

The Lion's Face: The name comes from the clinicial description of the Alzheimer face with features settling into “leonine impassivity.” Librettist Glyn Maxwell spent five years researching this opera about dementia and this shines through in his portrayal of the life of an Alzheimer's patient in a nursing home.