Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Rebecca Outram

All too often opera in concert is presented in its most basic format, without the theatricality and staging so characteristic to its execution. However, when a presentation comes along from the likes of The King’s Consort, you can be sure that justice will be served, even without the smoke and mirrors we’ve all grown to love.

The ‘semi-opera’ was an English musical and spoken theatre hybrid which by the end of the 17th century had begun to scrape the bottom of Restoration drama’s literary barrel, and by the 18th had been rendered obsolete by efforts to introduce the English to formal opera from the continent.