Mozart’s early youthful 29th Symphony felt rather misplaced in this otherwise solemn concert from Rafael Payare, Ulster Orchestra and the Belfast Philharmonic Choir.
This year’s Gala Conzert at Göttingen featured two different works not commonly heard and certainly not together, with excellent soloists and the Christ Church Cathedral Choir
In Nicholas Hytner's chocolate box production, lovingly revived by Bruno Ravella for Glyndebourne's tour, Alfonso is the most charismatic character on the stage.
Despite the beautiful sensitivity of La Nuova Musica, coupled with some truly sublime singing, the silliness of Cavalli’s opera is sometimes overplayed in this semi-staged production; less is, sometimes, more.
Irish mezzo soprano Rachel Kelly joins the Ulster Orchestra in an evening of richly coloured orchestration and exotic flavour, conducted by Jac van Steen.
The Devil Inside, a chilling new opera by Stuart Macrae with libretto by Louise Welsh, is a fairy tale for grown-ups. Who will be the last owner of the devilish bottle and the curse of eternal damnation?
School’s out for summer and with it the opportunity for the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artists to showcase their talents in the end of term main stage performance.
Aleksandra Kurzak delivers a top drawer performance as Fiorilla, leading a star-studded cast as Evelino Pidò gives us a lesson in how to conduct Rossini in the latest revival of Il turco in Italia.
At carnival time, Cavalli’s mission was to make his audience laugh, wow them with a bit of vocal gymnastics, butter up their romantic feelings with a few delicate cadences, and maybe leave a tear or two in their eye. It’s a potent formula, and it still works.
Former RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd imparts a distinctly Shakespearean flavour to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in this first collaboration between the Royal Opera and the Roundhouse.
If you want to have your operatic head seriously messed with, imagine the following: Così fan tutte staged on the Act I/IV set of John Copley’s soon-to-be-mothballed La bohème, which closed with a double performance on Saturday afternoon and evening. Throw in Don Alfonso sporting frock coat, wig and cane, looking for all the world like Baron Scarpia, and the mash-up of references had my head spinning.
There is something pleasurably straining, for the big-hall, velvet-accustomed operagoer, about the experience of sitting for three hours on a very tiny bench in a charmingly chiselled, candlelit little theatre that invites contemplation in its own right – beyond the attractions, musical and other, set up within its frame.
When you go to a student opera production, even at an institution as prestigious as the Royal Academy of Music, you don't expect to see one of the opera world's conducting legends in the pit. But that's precisely what we had at last night's performance of Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict, in the shape of Sir Colin Davis (CH, CBE), a man with several thousand opera performances on the clock.
Vendredi 20 Janvier 2017, la finale du concours Paris Opera Competition récompensait de jeunes chanteurs lyriques se produisant devant un jury de professionnels, lors d'un concert-concours public au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Verdict.
Après dix ans d’absence, La Somnanbula de Bellini, opéra composé en 1830 et surfant sur la vague du romantisme et des sciences occultes, est enfin reprise au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées avec un distribution dominée par Sabine Devieilhe, touchante et sublime Amina.
