Stuart Skelton’s visceral Peter Grimes is matched by a strong cast with thrilling playing and singing from the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner.
At the Barbican last night, Gerald Finley, John Adams and the BBC Symphony Orchestra combined to deliver the heaviest operatic punch I’ve been subjected to all year.
An excellent performance of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s The Last Supper receiving its Scottish première, with Roderick Williams and Susan Bickley heading a luxury cast.
Weaknesses in the staging did little to dim the musical pleasure of hearing Sir Mark Elder conduct Weber's masterpiece with OAE forces and an impressvee cast
There was an inundation of the sound of John Tavener's Flood of Beauty at the Barbican on Sunday, with the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Martyn Brabbins.
Così fan tutte in a 1950s carnival setting. Visually spectacular, and with plenty of laughs. Not everything works, but still worth seeing, especially for Roderick Williams' spivvy Don Alfonso.
Greek packs a punch. Especially in Music Theatre Wales’ simple production, here at the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio Theatre. Mark-Antony Turnage’s music brings Steven Berkoff’s play to life.
It was hard to choose from the fascinating menu for The Composer’s Echo (the title for this Leeds Lieder Festival), which is described as “a feast of song from the great Western European tradition which fuses poetry and music” by the festival’s director, Jane Anthony.
Celebrating Britten’s centenary, tonight’s performance of his five canticles seemed particularly fitting. Written throughout his composing career, they are a testament to the composer’s affinity for poetry and skill at writing with particular performers in mind, and they provide an intimate commentary on Britten’s large-scale works.
The Jam House is a jazz and blues club occupying the BBC’s former Queen Street Studios in Edinburgh. Now owned by Jools Holland and designer Neil Tabbitt, its spacious Georgian interior is occasionally given over to theatrical and musical events.
When choosing a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta to be performed at the Proms in a year firmly branded as "London 2012", The Yeomen of the Guard had obvious appeal, being set in one of the capital's most famous landmarks, and giving the opportunity, even in semi-staged form, to deck the hall with Beefeater uniforms.
After weeks of foul weather, this was more like it. Proper sunshine for a summer festival. Around Hereford Cathedral, watched over by a statue of Elgar draped in a fresh laurel wreath, Three Choirs Festival-goers enjoyed the warmth before venturing inside for equally sunny music. Even the yellow flowers framing the stage carried through the theme, setting off the golden centre-stage harp.
A year after the first performance of his St John Passion, Bach made several significant alterations that divert the emphasis of the work away from Christ’s final triumph over death, focusing instead on human sinfulness.
Combining Steven Berkoff’s brutally in-yer-face libretto with the gutsy music of Mark-Anthony Turnage was bound to be an explosive mix. The result was Greek, Turnage’s first opera (or, more accurately, Singspiel), first performed in 1988 and now given an inspiring new airing from Music Theatre Wales. Berkoff’s text was adapted from his own play, based on the Oedipus myth.
When is an opera not an opera? Some would answer this question with “when it’s a musical”, but such a response says more about our own preconceptions of what opera and musical theatre represent than it does about the works themselves.
Die Musiker beeindrucken wieder einmal mit ihrer Lebendigkeit und Interaktion, auch wenn ihre Frankenstein-Version ein wenig zu sehr in Klamauk ausartet.
Porté ici par un Gabrieli Consort en bonne forme, quoiqu’un peu contenu par la direction de Paul McCreesh, et des solistes tout à fait convaincants, King Arthur rappelle ici ses grandes qualités musicales
