Handel’s opera Orlando is famous for the great mad scene at the end of Act 2. Specifically written for the celebrated castrato Senesino, it’s an emotionally powerful ten-minute monologue.
Rattle conducts Janáček's glorious score with unerring skill and barely concealed adoration, but is let down by his regular collaborator's muddy vision.
A strange evening: superb Mozart playing from Rousset, plenty of fine singing, staging and costumes that one certainly isn’t going to forget. But what’s the point of it all?
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.
The legendary Kings College Choir, Cambridge, conducted by their very own Stephen Cleobury, was accompanied by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment on period instruments at the Royal Albert Hall.
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.
With the help of a star-studded cast, Barrie Kosky's imaginative staging delivers a production of Handel's Saul which has just about everything going for it: choreography, voices, acting. A must-see.
Traditionally at the Proms, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is reserved for the penultimate prom slot in September, but this year, they have made an exception and given it to the CBSO and Andris Nelsons.
“The very incarnation of vice” was how one critic described Célestine Galli-Marié’s Carmen at the opera’s 1875 Opéra Comique première. That description could equally be applied to Stéphanie d’Oustrac in Glyndebourne’s revival of David McVicar’s terrific production.
The English Concert play beautifully, the chorus is in superb voice, but a disjointed cast of unconvincing singers mean Hercules never reaches heroic heights.
In Peter Sellars' reconstruction of Purcell's unfinished semi-opera The Indian Queen, fine vocal performances are spoilt by indifferent staging and choreography and an embarrassing retelling of the Conquistador story.
Whilst still a charming production, a touch more warmth and bel canto style are yet required to bring some authentic Italian sunshine to L'elisir d'amore in Bow Street this November.
Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir in a late night performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at the BBC Proms.
From the insistent, driving opening to the sublime transcendence of the closing chorale, Norrington, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and James Gilchrist give us a St John Passion to remember.
Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Philharmonia in a fine account of Mahler's mighty “Symphony of a Thousand”, culminating in a dramatic realisation of Faust's redemption.
Whooping horns, a single yellow rose and a velvety cushion of strings set the scene for a sumptuous tranche of highlights from Der Rosenkavalier in the London Symphony Orchestra’s latest concert commemorating Richard Strauss in his 150th anniversary year.
What happens when a hero comes home? The exploration of this question forms the basis of director Peter Sellars’ new production of Hercules at the Canadian Opera Company.
At one point in the classic 1950 film All About Eve, the inimitable theatre critic Addison DeWitt speaks reverently of his art as critic: “I have lived in the theatre as a Trappist monk lives in his faith. I have no other world; no other life – and once in a great while, I experience that moment of revelation for which all true believers wait and pray.
If Count Almaviva (to say nothing of Don Giovanni) were alive today, he might perhaps enlist Richard Dawkins to defend his behaviour. We know from evolutionary biology that the male stands the best chance of passing on his genes if he has many partners, the female if she can keep the male around to help raise the children he’s had with her.
Andris Nelsons and the CBSO brought their superb Beethoven cycle to a close with fine performances of the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.The Eighth Symphony suffers from sitting in the shade of the Seventh and Ninth, but Beethoven’s “Little” F major symphony has a great deal to offer.
This concert was a triumph of smart programming, combining the third symphonies of Sibelius and Lutosławski, as well as works for soprano and orchestra by these composers – both modernists in their own ways.
In the celebratedly short time in which Rossini wrote The Barber of Seville, he got into a time capsule and took a short trip to twenty-first century London; on his return to 1816 Rome, he wrote the part of Rosina for Lucy Crowe's voice. Or at least, that's what it felt like at ENO last night, as Crowe turned in a performance which outstrips my ability to find superlatives.
As I walked to this concert by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir, I wondered what might have changed in Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Beethoven in the two decades since he first recorded these symphonies.
If I were to describe Janáček's late opera The Cunning Little Vixen as a bit of a one-off, I could be accused of severe understatement. It's the only opera in the mainstream repertoire to be based on a cartoon strip, it mixes animals and humans at will and it incorporates dance and mime routines, all against the backdrop of the setting of ancient forest so beloved by middle European romantics.
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.
A true highlight of this year's London Handel Festival was a performance of the dramatic oratorio Saul, featuring a large cast of young soloists, including several previous finalists of the Festival's annual singing competition, all now getting well established in their solo careers.
When I was young, I often wondered what it would be like if an angel came down to earth. I mused that, if such an angel came, she would be a pretty, middle-aged lady with a slender figure, blonde hair, and, most importantly, a gorgeous, ethereal voice. Yesterday at the Music Institute of Chicago, I almost believed that such an angel had indeed come down from heaven when internationally-acclaimed soprano Lucy Crowe – the shining star of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Handel’s Hercules – joined Baroque Band for an enchanting, memorable evening of historically-informed Baroque performance. Guest directed by English Consort Director Harry Bicket, who masterfully led the Lyric orchestra in Hercules, this concert proved the ultimate encore for both Bicket and Crowe following their operatic triumph at the Lyric.
Ancient Greek superheroes – irresistible. Half god, half man, incredible deeds leave Perseus, Theseus, and of course Hercules enough to rival Superman, Spiderman, and The Incredible Hulk. Small wonder then why these demigods and precursor of the modern comic book superhero have captivated the hearts and minds of many of the world’s greatest writers, dramatists and composers.
Welches Werk spielt man vor Mozarts Requiem? Ivan Fischer und das Konzerthausorchester haben mit Mozarts Symphonie in Es-Dur an diesem Abend eine hervorragende Lösung gefunden.
L'orchestre et le chœur de santa Cecilia ont marqué la fin de la Semaine Sainte d'un grand moment de musique et de spiritualité avec ce bel hommage au Cantor de Leipzig.
Selbst in den technisch-räumlichen Gegebenheiten der Beethovenhalle erlebten die Zuhörer ein Festival- und Zyklusfinale wie man es sich nur wünschen kann.
